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VOYAGES AND TRAVELS 


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SCENES IN MANY LANDS 


WITH EIGHT HUNDRED AND FIFTY ILLUSTRATIONS ON WOOD AND STEEL 


OF 


Peer ee ROMAALE PARTS (OF THE WORLD 


COMPRISING MOUNTAINS, LAKES, RIVERS, PALACES, CATHEDRALS, CASTLES, ABBEYS, AND RUINS 


WITH ORIGINAL DESCRIPTIONS BY THE BEST AUTHORS 


EDITED BY 


EROGDESCOUDANGE, LAD. 


EDITOR OF THE NATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA AND ZELL’s POPULAR ENCYCLOPEDIA AND DICTIONARY, ETC, 


VOLUME II. 


BOSTON 
EeWia A Lick RR. & CO, 


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TABLE OF CONTENTS. 


CSP RUNUEES MeL 


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NorTHERN PROVINCES OF PORTUGAL, 


WESTERN AFRICA, 
NORTHERN AFRICA, 
THE NILE, 
EASTERN AFRICA, 


MADAGASCAR AND MAURITIUS, 


CONSTANTINOPLE AND 


Astatic TURKEY, 


NINEVEH AND BABYLON, 


PERSIA, 

INDIA, 

Inpo-CuIna, 
AUSTRALIA, 

CHINA, 

JAPAN, 

Sanpwicn Isuanns, 
CALIFORNIA AND THE 
MExIco, : : 
CuBA, 

GUIANA AND BRaAzIiu, 
PERU, ; : : 
Norway, . 
DENMARK, 


POLAND, : 


° 


Rocky MounrTarys, 


THe GERMAN EMPIRE, . : : 


Down THE RHINE, 
GREAT BRITAIN, 
THe UNITED STATEs, 


LIST OF STEEL PLATES AND PHOTOGRAVURES. 


V OG USLE i 


Facing Refers to 
Page Page 


Facing Refers to 
Page Page =. 


The City of Hereford .. : : . 498,495 
The City of Worcester : . : 458 498 


National Capitol, Washington (Frontispiece) 


The Azure Cliffs of Green River, Colorado 290 290 


~ 


Palace of Fredericksborg, Denmark 368 368 The City of Peterborough : 506 510 
The Liebethaler Glen 386 396 The Mouth of the Yare 512-541 
The Port, Hamburg 396. ~ 398 Yarmouth Quay, from the Bridge 516 512 
The Market-place, Hamburg . 400 401 Carrow Bridge, Norwich 464 5138 
Town Hall, Bremen 406 401 Devil’s Tower, King Street, Norwich 470 =514 
The Castle of Falkenstein 408 408 The Ferry, Close, Norwich . 475 ole 
Bridge at the Entrance of Oker Thal AI2 = 416 Bishops’ Bridge, Norwich , . 490 = 515 
Hameln 4160: 417 Potswick Grove . ; ; 524 515 
The Porta Westfalica 420 418 Shipmeadow Lock pas yee 528 516 
Karlshafen 426 420 The City of Winchester 5384 537 
The Upper Rhine : ; ; 434 435 Franconia Notch, White Mountains 540 539 
‘The Middle Bridge in the Via Mala 434 436 | Memorial Hall, Cambridge 170 540 
Rheineck 438 436 View of Albany 5 544 39544 
Ruins of Stolzenfels 442 445 A Distant View of Schenectady j 548 544 
View of Coblentz 439 e440 ‘Trinity Church, Boston 166 544 
Tower near Andernach . 21 ; 442 447 Harper’s Ferry, from the Blue Ridge . 564 564 — 
State Capitol, Hartford : 4 A 484 484 Natural Bridge, Virginia 5 : 568 568 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


VOLUME IL. 
— I 
PAGE 

View of Oporto, . 3 | Karnak. Hypostyle Hall, . 7 
Barcellos, : - 4 | Medinet. Court of Rhamses, 
The Castle of Guimaraés, 7 | Court of the Colossi, 
Cathedral of Guimaraés, 8 | Medinet. Temple Palace of imines IIL, 
Portal of the Chapter House, 11 | Hermonthis, : ‘ 
Tomb in the Interior of the Conventual Chirah, 12 | Kom-Ombos, i 
View of the Conventual Church, 13 | The Temple of Isis, 
Doorway of the Chapel. Batalha, 15 | Phile. Colonnade, . 
Castle of Pintra de Cintra, 17 | Beghieh, 
Gate of the Castle of Pintra de Cintra, i8 | Khartas, . 
Mafra, 19 | Maharakka, . 
Tower of Belem, : ; 20 | Murchison’s Falls of He Nile, 
Doorway of Santa Maria. Belem, 21 | Khor of Desset, 
View of the City of Morocco, 25 | Rock near Kassala, 
Moorish Cemetery in Morocco, 26 | Lake Tana, . 
View of St. Louis, 27 | Cascade of Antona Rirkor. ; 
Bakel, 28 | Ruined Castle of Guizoara, on the ngads eee no, 
Cataract of eaaina: 29 | Zanzibar, 
Hombori Mountains, 30 | View in the Heart of (a 
Forest near the Senegal, 31 | Lake Tanganyika, 
Government House at Goree, . 2 | Victoria Falls, ‘ 
Interior Court of the Post-House at Grind Bhegate: 33 | Crossing a Chasm in Madaasear: 
Sacred Islands on Lake Jonanga, 34 | The Baobab Tree, 
Nemours, 37 | Chief’s Cabin at Tamatava, : 
Tlemcen, o9 | Port Louis: Quay,  .. ; ° : 
Sidi-Bouisrak, 40 | Black River, : 
The Mosque of Bou- Médina, 41 | Natural Bridge, near Breneconre) : 
Door of the Mosque of Bou-Médina, 43 | Summer Parlor in the Seraglio, 
Fort of Géryville, . : : "45 | Interior of a Kiosque in the Seraglio, 
Oasis of Metlili, ; ; : ; 47 | Fountain in the Seraglio, . 
Bou-Alem, 48 | Nicomedia, . : ; 
Ouargla, 51 | The At-Meidan or ippodtone, 
Café at El area: 53 | Nicea. The Green Mosque, 
Bazaar in Tunis, 55 | Broussa. Sultan Bajazet’s Mosque, . 
Court of Lions at Bardo, 57 | Sardis. Ruins of a Church, 
Banks of the Medjerdab, 58 | Bas-relief of Sesostris, 
Remains of Roman Aqueduct, 59 | Ephesus, 
Ruins of the Temple of Zaghouan, 61 | Rhodes, : 
Ruins of the Amphitheatre of El-Djem, 63 | Gate of the Gr aa: Master’ s Palnas. 
Tripoli, : ‘ ; - : 66 | Church of our Lady of Victory, : 
Citadel of Tripoli, , : : : 67 | Priory of France, : E ; ; 
Egyptian Garden and Temple, . : : 71 | Jewish Street, . 5 A . 4 
Egyptian Villa, . : : : . ° 73 | The Knights’ Barracks, 4 . ° 
Karnak. Exterior Wall, . . ° . . 75 | Mosque of Omar. Jerusalem, . ° 


PAGE 
76 
78 
79 
80 
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115 
1 
119 
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127 
128 
129 
131 
132 
133 
134 
135 
137 


vi LLSd1 OF 


Aceldama, . : . ; : 4 
Arab Fountain, 

Cascade in the Taurus, 

Trebizond Sea-shore, 

Fortifications of Trebizond, 

Erzeroum. Street Scene, 

Erzeroum. Tchifté Minaret, ‘ F 
Winged Bull from Nineveh, * 
Mosque of Iman-Moussa,_. F 
Akar-Kuf, 

Hanging Gardens of Babylon 

Birs Nimroud, 

Gate of Teheran, : : ; . 
The Shah’s Garden, . 

Minaret of Semnoon, : 
Interior Court of the } MoRHue of Tear Rare 
Ruins of Toos, 

Persian Pigeon House, 

The Golden Temple of Guiciisecs 
Tomb of Runjeet Sing, 
Dwelling-Houses in Srinagar, 
Buddhist Temple. Pandradar, . 
Dancing-Girl of Cashmere, 

Aladdin’s Gate. Delhi, 

Palace and Park of the Grand Mogul, 
Housseinabad Imambarra. Lucknow, 
Garden Gate of the Tj, 

The Taj. Agra, ; ; 
Facade of the Palace. Gwalior, 

The Mausoleum of Akbar, 

Palace of Copal Bhowan, 

Mausoleum. Ulwur, 

Golden Kiosque. Ambeer, 

Court of the Palace. Oudeypoor, 
Procession of a Mahratta Prince, 
Pagoda. Bombay, 

Native Cottages in Ceylon, 

Interior of the Pagoda. Madura, 
Pagoda. Seringham, . ; 
Interior Court, Palace at Tanjore, 
Mosque near Trichinopoly, 

Pagoda of Chillambaran, . 

Tank. Pagoda of Chillambaran, . 
Gopura. ‘Triputry, . 

Mausoleum. Golconda, ; 
Rock-hewn Temples. Mahayellipore, 
Rock-hewn Temples. Mahavellipore, 
Mosque. ‘Triplican, 

Car of Juggernaut, 

Mosque at Hoogly, 

Pagoda, near Kuttack, 

Gaurisankar, 

View in Indo-China, 

Grand Pagoda of Rangoon, 

Temple of Shwé-Zergoug. Pagan. 
Maha-Toolut-Boungyo, 
Maha-comiye-Peima, 

The Temple of Mengoun, 

Palace. Bangkok, 

Valley of the Irrawaddy, . 


PAGE 


158 
159 
140 
141 
142 
144 


145 | 


149 
150 
151 
1538 
oy 
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MED 9 


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Lode! 


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213 
215 
217 
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221 
223 
225 
227 
229 
231 
232 
233 


ILLUSTRATION: 


Royal Audience-Hall. Bangkok, 

Pagoda of Watt-Chang, 

Royal Recreations, 

Monkeys teasing a Crocodile, ; ; 
View at the Mouth of the River Laigon, . . 
The Cataract of Khon, : : F 
Angcor Wat, . ; : : : : : 
The Baion. Angcor Thom, . ; 

Australian Hut, : : - 

The Eucalyptus serving as a Bridge, . ‘ i 
Australian Vegetation, 

Australian Seacoast, . : : ee 
The River Murray ina Brasher, : : : 
English Legation, 3 ‘ : : : : 
Water View. Shanghai, . ; ; ; e 
Monastery Chapel, : 

French Legation, 

Mosque, 

Temple of Conan 

Porcelain Tower, . 

Imperial Garden. China, 

Japanese Residence, , 

Butterfly Ballet in a Theatre i in Y edd 

Street Scene in the Quarter of the Daimios, . 
Japanese Bazaar, . ; : : Ress 
Temple of Hatchiman, : - 

Belfry of Buddhist Temple, . : : 


English Legation, : : ; : 

Pali of Nuuanu, ‘ ; A 

Crater of Kilauea, 

Waves of Fire, ‘ : : : ? 

Lava Stream, ; : ; : - ‘ : 
View on the Plains, . : : 3 é 
The Grand Hotel at San Francisco, z S ‘ 
Chinese Quarter in San Francisco, . : 

The Cathedral, . : E : : ; 

The Yosemite Valley, : . , : : 
Nevada Fall, : : 4 - ; 
Giant Trees of California, : ; . - 
The Garden of the Gods, . : : . 
Long’s Peak, . ; . : x 

Road in British Golumnbiat 

Forest in British Columbia, : 4 ‘ 

Jesuit College. Santa Clara, ; ; ‘ 
Mission. Monterey, 

View near Vera Cruz, . : f 5 

Vera Cruz, ‘ : A . 5 a 
Convent of La Maca P : = . 
The Alameda, . F < ‘ é 4 
Castle of Chapultepec. : : ; : . 
Floating Gardens of Mexico, ° : . 


Ruins of Tlalmanalco, ; : 

Bas-relief of Tigers. Circus, Chi-chen, : 

North Fagade of the Nuns’ Palace. Chi-chen, 

Palace of the Nuns. Chi-chen, 3 

North Fagade of the Nuns’ House. Uxmal, 

La Carcel. Chi-chen, . 

Details of the Fagade of the Governars 8 House at 
Uxmal, 

Mexican Garden, . ; : ? : . : 


PAGR 
234 
235 
236 
237 
239 
240 
243 
245 
247 
248 
249 
250 
251 
254 
255 
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266 
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265 
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273 
275 
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278 
279 
281 
282 
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286 
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288 
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292 
293 
294 
295. 
297 
299 
300 
301 
302 
303 
304 
305 
306 
307 
308 
309 


310 
311 


Oh OOP ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Avenue of Palms, . : ; F 
Havana, z , 
Natural Forest. Cuba, 


Cayenne, 

Jesuit Mission, 

Road near Cayenne, 

Cascade on the Rosota, 

Falls of the Rio Negro, 

View on the Rio Negro, 

Mouth of the Sagnassou, : 
Avenue of Palms in the Botanic Cacia, 
Paseo Publico, 

Peruvian River, : 
Mountain near Huaro, . ; ‘ 
Hacienda of Lauramarca, 

The Gate of the Cordilleras, - 

The Cerro Escopal, 

Rio Cadena, . 

Valley of the Mernonats: : 

Rio Cuchua, 

Rio Maniri, 

Machu-Condoroma, 

Rio Ceofi, 

Rio de Condoroma, 

Cailloma la Rica, 

Basalt Dikes on the Velille, 

Rio Apurimac, 


Source of the Rete anolis; : : r 
Gorge of the Huarancalqui, ° . 
Lazaretto. Christiansand, . “ . 
The Riukan Falls, . & A A 
The Voring Fos, . : , ° ° 
The Fladal, : 3 : 5 
The Naero Fiord, : 4 : : 
The Heimdal, . : : A : 
The Church at Bakke, . : : 
The Romsdal, . . ‘ - fe 
Veblungsnaeset, . : ; : : 


The Fiord of Framnaes, 

Scene in Denmark, 

The Exchange. Copenhagen, 

View of Copenhagen, 

The Palace of Rosenborg, 

Amac Market, and House of Piyooke, : 
- Portico of the Frue Kirke, 

Frue Kirke, Interior, 

Cathedral of Roskilde, 


Palace of Fredericksborg, . ; : 
Chateau of Egeskow, : : : 
Chateau of Loyenborg, : ; . 


Chateau of Glorup, . 
Chateau of Rygaard, 
Forest in Poland, : 
Church of the Holy Cross. 
Chateau of Lazienski, 
Park of Lazienski, : 
View in the Suburbs of Heriine: : 


Warsaw, 


The Palace in Berlin, . d : . 
Bird-House. Zodlogical Gardens, . 
The National Gallery, . ‘ ; ° 


PAGE 
314 
315 
317 
320 
321 
322 
323 
324 
325 
326 
327 
328 
329 
330 
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334 
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.. d44 


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362 
363 


364 | 


365 
366 
367 
368 


368 | 


369 


371 
372 
373 
374 
375 
377 
378 
379 


Snake House. Zodlogical Gardens, 
Grotto. Sans-Souci, 

Colonnade. Sans-Souci, 
Sans-Souci, 
Franciscan Cloister. 
Franciscan Cloister. 
Franciscan Cloister. 
Franciscan Cloister. 
North-east Corner of Inner Courtyard, . 
City Gate, 
Town Hall. 
Town Hall. 
The Arsenal, 
Town Hall. Brieg, 

Old Bridge. Dresden, 

Forest Road in the Giant Rr enteriie? 
Zwinger. Dresden, 
Grand-Ducal Castle. 
Kiel, 
Ploen, . a P 
Jews’ Street. Hamburg, - 
Canal in Hamburg, : : 
Interior of Cathedral. Magdeburg, 
Town Hall. Halberstadt, 

Cloister of Cathedral. Halberstadt, 
Cathedral. Halberstadt, 

Church. Quedlinburg, 

Castle of Regenstein, 

The Pool in Bode Valley, 

The Devil’s Bridge in the Bode Valley, 
The Rosstreppe, ; ‘ ‘ 
The Witches’ Ball-Room, 

Hermit’s Rocks, 

The Monk, 


Dantzic, 
East Corridor, 


Breslau, . 
Dantzic, 
Dantzic, 


Schwerin, 


Wernigerode, 


Town Hall. 
The Brocken, ; 
Luther’s House. Eisenach, 


The Wartburg, ; 
Luther’s Room in the Ween 
The Marienglashohle, 
The Anna Valley, 

The Thorstein Rocks, 
Cathedral. Erfurt, 
Goethe’s Promenade. 
Castle of Coburg, 
Coburg, 

Bamberg, 

Mayence, 
Frankfort-on-the- pitas 
Riidesheim, . 


Weimar, 


_ Bacharach, 
370 


Kaub and the Pfalz, 


_ Ehrenbreitstein, 


Godesbureg, . : 
The Cathedral of alone: 


St. Martin’s Church, 
| English Oak, 


| 


Teignmouth, 
Dartmouth, - 
Plymouth, . : ; . 


Refectory, East Section, 
Refectory, West Section 


Vil 


PAGE 


380 
381 
382 
383 
384 
385 
386 
387 
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390 
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392 
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424 
425 
427 
429 
430 
431 
438 
438 
44] 
443 
444 
446 
448 
451 
453 
455 
456 
457 
458 


vili LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE 
Devonport, Z : : ’ : : . 460 
Tavistock, ; . : : ; = P 461 


Fowey, ; . : ; ‘ ; : - 462 
Truro, 5 5 . ° ° . ; ; 463 
Falmouth, . : : ° ; : ; . 464 
Lizard Point, . ° : . ° ; 465 
Kyance Cove, ; ¢ . 5 ; : . 466 
Penzance, ; - : ‘ 5 467 
St. Michael’s Morne ; F : : ; ~ 469 
Logan Rock, . + Stang ° : ; : 471 


Land’s End, : . : 4 2 , ease 
Cape Cornwall, : ; : : ; - 473 
Botallack Mine, . ‘ : Z vIna-a 
Coast between Tintagel and  Bosonatles ; : 476 
St. Ives, : ; ; : ; & ATG 


The Avon at Besta ; : : : ‘ 479 
Mouth of the Avon, . : $ 2 : . 480 
Chepstow Castle, . : ° : : : 481 


Raglan Castle, . , ‘ ; : : . 482 
Viaduct of Crumlin, ; : : , : 483 
Newport, . : : ° 5 ‘ ; . 484 


Milford, . a 5 : Ps : F : 485 
Carnarvon Castle. Exterior, : ‘. : . 486 
Carnarvon Castle. Interior, . - ‘ : 487 
Llyn Gwynant and Merlin’s Fort, . : . 488 
Pont Aberglaslyn, . ; : . bs : 489 
St. John’s Church. Chester, , ; : - 490 
Edinburgh Castle, . : : ° - : 491 
Holyrood Chapel, ‘ : , ; : « 493 
Lincoln Cathedral, . : 3 . : 494 
Haddon Hall, ; ; : ° ; < - 495 
Dorothy Vernon’s Terrace, : ° ° ‘ 496 
Courtyard. Haddon Hall, . 3 é : .> 497 
Aquarium of the Victoria Regia. Chatsworth, 498 
Shrewsbury, : : : : - : » 2499 
Warwick Castle, : ee : ; F 501 
Kenilworth Castle, ae 8 é ; : Ae sO 
Chatsworth, . : 5 ; 4 - ern 910751 
Shakespeare’s Tomb, . ; 7 : : . 506 
Blenheim, : J . : : : 509 
The Park of See ; - : : : e010 
The Tower of London, . ; 4 : : 516 
Westminster Abbey, . ~. : ° “ eenbl 


St. Thomas’ Hospital, . ; : 3 : 518 | 


St. James’ Park. London, . 7 ‘ ; - old 
Kensington Gardens. London, - : ; 521 
Latania Borbonica, : ‘ é i ‘ “pas 
Cedar. Kew Gardens, . ‘ a é 523 
Cyathea Dealbata, : : , ; : . 524 
Interior of Hot-House. Kew, - : 4 525 


Auraucaria Imbricata. Kew, "4 ‘ 
View from Richmond Hill, 

Palm-House. Kew, 

Hampton Court, 

Bird’s-eye View of Henin Carri 
Hampton Court. Wolsey’s Palace, 
Hampton Court. First Courtyard, 
Windsor Castle, : 

Cascades. Virginia Water: ‘ 
West Wycombe Park, ; : « . 
West Wilton Park, 


The Glen, : : , 3 , é ‘ 
- Old Mill. Medford, ; 
Harvard College. Cambridge, . 


Cradock Mansion. Medford, 

Near Calicoon, on the Erie Railway, 

East and West Branches of the Delaware, 
The Starucea Viaduct, 

Watkins’ Glen, 

Portage Falls and Bridge, 

Portage Falls and Bridge, 

Havana Glen, 
Prospect Point. 
American Fall, 
Little Glen Iris Falls, 

Flatboating on the Susquehanna, 

The Alleghany at Freeport, 

Whirlpool Rapids below Niagara, 

Sinking Spring, near Tyrone, 

Iise the Pack-saddle,” 

Horse-shoe Curve. tlashang Mountnnen 

The J uniata, 

Chester. Pennsylvania, 

Horticultural Hall. Centennial Grousties Phila. - 
Main Building. Centennial Grounds, Phila., 
Memorial Hall. 
Laurel Hill, 
Bridge near Fairmount, . 

Wild Cat Glen, y 

The Delaware Water Gap, 
Conemaugh Viaduct, 

Scene on the St. Augustine Bye 
At Mill Creek, 

Gold-Washing in the Sigma Narada 
In Jack’s Narrows, : 
Planting the Flag on the Beers Monstatees 
Mining in Colorado, : ‘ 
Crossing the Rocky Mountains, : 
Tail-Piece. . . 3 A , : 


Niagara, 


Florida, 


Centennial Grounds, Phila., . 


moOYAGES AND TRAVELS; 


OR, 


See NSN eWANY LANDS. 


WO WMH “TT 


NORTHERN PROVINCES OF PORTUGAL. 


AVING finished our excursion to Toledo, we returned to Madrid, and 


after spending a few days in visiting its galleries, and the works of 
the ancient masters contained therein, we determined to join a party 


that were about starting for a tour through Portugal. It was decided 


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that we should depart from Madrid, and, taking a northwest course, 


proceed to Vigo. 


The kingdom of Portugal is a mere offset of the Spanish mon- 
archy: under the name of Lusitania it was a province of Roman 
Spain; in later. days it shared with that country the ravages of the Suevi 
and the Visigoths, and, still later, was overrun and occupied by the Moors. 
Karly in the eleventh century, Henry of Burgundy, for the very impor- 
tant services which he had rendered to Alfonso VI. of Castile, obtained 
the. hand of his daughter, with the government and possession of all the 
lands in Portugal, whence he had expelled the Moors, and which were 
erected into an hereditary earldom. The son of this marriage, the brave 
Alfonso Henriquez, who succeeded his father in 1112, —having obtained a 
miraculous victory over five Moorish kings on the plains of Ourique, — was proclaimed, 
by the unanimous voice of his troops, King of Portugal. To this country, then, 
whose birth was so romantic, and whose destiny it was at one time to be mistress of 
both Indies, and the mother of Brazil, we hasten with expectant steps. It was about 
six in the evening when we caught our first view of Vigo. It is scarcely possible 
to conceive a more lovely scene than was presented to us as our carriage took its 


1 


9 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


course towards the town. The mountains which surround the bay were illumined 
with the soft and mellow light of the declining sun; the waters were calm and 
smooth as those of an inland lake. Villages and churches were to be seen here 
and there on the shore, while in a corner towards the south-east, and extending from 
the base of a lofty hill some way up its side, appeared Vigo itself, glittering with 
its houses of white, surmounted by its venerable castle, and forming one of the most 
prominent objects of the whole view. 

There are not many objects of curiosity in Vigo. It contains about six thou- 
sand inhabitants, is a lively town, beautifully situated, and, as was to be expected, 
quite of a continental character. It recalled forcibly to our mind some of the pic- 
tures in Rogers’s “Italy,” and the scenes described in the opening chapter of Manzoni’s 
“Promessi Sposi.” One lane we walked through, in its immediate vicinity, enclosed 
by low walls of unshaped stone, might have been the very place along which Don 
Abbondio was going, reciting his office from the breviary, when he had his rencon- 
tre with the two brayi. The houses are generally white, but sometimes of a light 
blue. The streets are narrow. It abounds in beggars, and nobody in it seems to 
have anything to do. We partook of an early and excellent dinner at the Fonda, 
consisting of several courses, in the third and fourth of which fish was brought i, 
and immediately afterwards made preparations for our departure to Tuy, with the 
two gentlemen who had accompanied us from Madrid, as we were all desirous of 
reaching Oporto as soon as might be. We accordingly engaged four mules to carry 
our luggage, and four others to carry ourselves; and so, attended by the drivers of 
the former, set out on our journey. Tuy is about four leagues distant from Vigo. 


A league is usually reckoned about four English miles; but in Portugal this measure 


varies so much in length,— you will in fact hear of long leagues, and short leagues, 


and leagues without any qualifying epithet, — that, to be told of a distance in leagues, 
which, nevertheless, is the only measure with which the people are conversant, affords 
often a very indefinite idea of the ground to be actually passed over. We noticed, — 
however, that when the leagues were characterized as short, they frequently proved 
longer than usual. 

We did not reach Seixas until after three o’clock, and then we had to wait 
nearly two hours for our mules. These, however, at length arrived, and as soon as 
our baggage was packed upon those destined to convey it, we mounted the others, 
and set forward towards Vianna. 

There was a wildness and a grandeur in the scenes we had passed through, which, 
at any other time, would have struck us with admiration; but now, our only anxiety 
was to get on. We had no leisure for the magnificent, the sublime, or the picturesque; ; 
but on, on we proceeded, through mud and dirt, and wind and rain, and now also | 


through gloom and darkness. A weary way, indeed, it was. Anxiously did we look 


VIEW OF. OFORTO, 


s VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


out for the lights of Vianna long before we reached it, and were ready to think the 
farther we went the more it receded from us. At last, however, we entered it, nearly 
at midnight, and with feelings of exultation at the thought of being speedily and com- 
fortably housed. 

Vianna is prettily situated at the mouth of the Lima, having a population of about 
nine thousand, and is a port of some importance. The streets are somewhat narrow, 
but the houses in general appear of a better class than one usually meets in towns 
of the same size. There is little to be seen in Vianna, and as we had no time to 


lose, we immediately made arrangements for proceeding on our way. We engaged a 


Barcellos. 


muleteer to accompany us to Oporto, and three mules, — two for ourselves and one for 
our baggage, — and so left Vianna for Barcellos about three o’clock in the afternoon. 
The road to Barcellos is miserable — worse than the worst cross-country roads we had 
hitherto ever seen. Indeed, Portugal is noted for bad roads. One over which a car- 
riage can pass is a rarity. The high-roads are often so narrow that two persons can- 
not ride abreast on them; sometimes (and not unfrequently) they are so covered with 
mud that one quite pities the horses as they pass through it; sometimes they are more 
than ankle-deep in’ water, and sometimes paved with huge stones, which make the horses 


slip and stumble as if they were going every minute to fall, and seem designed to 


SCENES [IN MANY LANDS. 5 


impede, as much as possible, the progress of man and beast, and whatever else passes 
over them. We did not reach Barcellos until the shades of evening had set in. It is 
beautifully situated on the Cayado, over which stands a venerable bridge (see page 4), 
connecting the portions of the town on the opposite banks. Over the bridge was 
passing a stream of people, in the various costumes of the country, whose appearance 
was rendered still more gay and striking by a sprinkling of red umbrellas, which are 
commonly used in this country, as a defence against the scorching sun, as well as the 
rain. 

The circumstance of a market being held in Barcellos during our stay there, gave 
us the opportunity of observing the national costumes of the peasantry and fishermen 
of the surrounding country. The dress of the men offers few peculiar features, and 
differs little from that of the peasantry of the south of France. In speaking of the 
dress of the ancient inhabitants of the peninsula, Strabo says that the Lusitanians wore 
black cloaks, on account of their sheep being principally of that hue. It is probably 
for the same reason that the clothes of the Portuguese of the present day are either 
brown or black. The costume of the women possesess a great deal of character. The 
skirt, with flat plaits, is short and sometimes drawn up through a girdle high enough 
to show more than half the leg, which is generally bare. The body of the dress, fas- 
tened across the chest with two or three silver buttons, fits close to the figure, and 
being separate from the skirt, allows the chemise to puff out around the waist. The 
sleeves, which are those of the chemise, are wide, and occasionally worn rolled up. The 
head-dress consists of a wide-brimmed hat of black felt, sometimes adorned with tufts, 
and nearly always wrapped round with the lengo, or white handkerchief, whose folds, 
falling over the neck and shoulders of the wearer, protect them from the sun. Long 
earrings, and sometimes gold necklaces and chains, complete this picturesque costume, 
of which yellow, red, and bright green are the predominating colors. 

The principal part of the town of Barcellos stands on the right bank of the 
river, which slopes considerably. The streets and houses are good. The population 
about four thousand. 

The road between Vianna and Oporto, for the greater part of the way, was much 
of the same character as what we had passed through the day before. As we 
approached Oporto, the passengers of course became more frequent. Our companion 
remarked that he thought the Portuguese were the ugliest people under the sun; and 
we could not help being ourself struck with their gypsy-like appearance and expres- 
sion of countenance. The Moors have left evident traces of their former occupation 
of the country, on both the style of its buildings and the features of its inhabitants. 
Oporto (see page 3) is a very fine and imposing city, situated on two granite 
hills on the north bank of the Douro. On the left bank of the river, connected 
with Oporto by a suspension bridge, is Villa-Nova de Gaia, the ancient Portus Cale. 


6 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


The Cathedral and the Episcopal Palace overlook the town, while the Convent of 
Serra do Pilar, turned into a fortress by Dom Pedro in 1832, protects or keeps in 
order the suburbs. The port is crowded with shipping, bearing the flags of all nations. 
The streets running from the base to the summit of the hills are almost perpendic- 
ular, —regular stairs cut out of the solid rock; and the Douro almost disappears in 
the gloom into which it is thrown by the inaccessible hills that form its banks. The 
effect thus produced is, from a distance, most picturesque; but it is not improbable 
that the inhabitants would prefer a city easier to travel through, and even an artist 
would gladly yield a little of the unevenness of the ground for the sake of a little 
more national coloring, and have it less French, less English, and more Portuguese 
in its architecture. Oporto is, above all, a business city, and the water-side, the quays, 
the adjacent streets, particularly the “Rua Nova dos Inglezes,” where a kind of open- 
air exchange is held, are all devoted to commerce. The celebrated wines of the 
Douro, so well known to us under the name of “ port-wines,” are stored in Villa- 
Nova de Gaia, where are also in full operation many distilleries, tanneries, chemical 
factories, silk factories, &c. .The nobility, whose influence has considerably decreased 
since the fall of Dom Miguel, have their mansions grouped near the cathedral; the 
finest and best stores and shops are found in the “Rua das Flores,” a very agreeable 
lounge for people of leisure ; the money-changers and bankers have their offices in 
the “Largo da Feira,” and the sailors congregate by the water side, in the old part 
of the town, in dark, gloomy, and hardly accessible streets. 

Among the finest streets of Oporto, we must mention the “Rua Nova de San 
Joao,” the “ Rua St. Antonio,” the “Calgada dos Clerigos,” and the “Rua Nova dos 
Inglezes ;” the last abruptly terminated at one end by a perpendicular rock, crowned 


by the Cathedral and the extensive buildings of the Episcopal Palace. 


a 


On the plateau at the top of the hill, stands the Church of Our Lady of the 


Assumption, the picturesque tower of which serves as a landmark to ships making 
for the Douro. Oporto offers few monuments worthy of notice. The Church of St. 
Martinho da Cedofeita is worth but little attention for its architectural features, but 
is interesting as being, after the Cathedral of Braga, the oldest religious edifice in 
the country. 

it was here in the garden, or rather “quinta,” of one of our friends, that we 


gathered, for the first time in our life, a ripe orange from a tree which was bear- 


ing both fruit and flowers at the same time. This, however, is an ordinary circum-~ 


stance. The oranges of Oporto are somewhat coarse, far inferior to those of Lisbon; 
but the blossom is very beautiful, and its odor most fragrant and delicious. We 
had the opportunity to admire other magnificent flowers, but were told that the best, 
in this country, came out in winter. We had also an enchanting view of the river 
and the sea. It was truly a delightful spot, and seemed to realize all that one had 


read of the sunny lands of the south, and their sweet attractions. 


or 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 7 


The banks of the Douro are most beautiful and romantic, and afford the people 
of Oporto many charming views from different parts of their city; while there are 
many sweet spots on it, a short distance off, to which they resort when they wish to 
enjoy a day’s pleasure, apart from the “crowd and hum of men.” 

We left Oporto with the muleteer who had accompanied us from Vianna. We 
had engaged him only to Oporto; but on arriving there, he proposed that we should 
extend the engagement; and as we had no reason to be dissatisfied with him, we 
fell in with. his proposal. We accordingly set out for Guimaraés, that we reached 
on the following day. Its situation is enchanting, in a circular amphitheatre, nes- 
tled among mountains, and it is historically one of the most famous cities in Portu- 
gal. Here Count Henry held his court when the country was as yet but an earldom; 


and in this place, was born his son, Alfonso Henriquez, surnamed “the Victorious,” 


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The Castle of Guimaraés. 


who was its first king. The appearance of the city corresponds well with both the 
beauty of its position and its historical celebrity. Its streets are fair and wide; its 
buildings quaint and picturesque ; and even the very pavement, consisting principally 
of rude, irregular flag-stones, contributes to it a medieval character. The square in 
which our inn was situated is really worth describing. On the east, right opposite 
to us, was the Cathedral, a small but venerable structure of the fourteenth century; 
adjoining it, immediately in front, was a fountain, the very sight of which, besides being 
in such a climate agreeable and refreshing, carried us back to times of antiquity; at a 
short distance towards the south was a beautiful stone canopied market cross; whilst 
in a corner at the north-west, painted blue, surmounted by a cross and raised on a 
cloister, stood the Hotel de Ville. The houses, with their projecting roofs and balconied 
windows, were quite in harmony with the other buildings. It was one of the most 


frequented parts of the city, and yet an air of religious solemnity, by no means par- 


r 


8 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


taking of gloom nor at all inconsistent with cheerfulness, seemed to pervade the whole 
scene, affording an apt illustration of the influence Christianity should exercise over 
the actions and pursuits of our daily life. We first went to the ruins of the Castle 
(see page 7), situated on- a rising ground near the town. ‘They are fine and 
interesting, but by no means extensive. We ascended the tower, and had a fine 
view, both of the city and the surrounding country. We next visited the Cathedral, 
dedicated to Nossa-Senhora da Oliveira, which we here present, a name due to a 
curious old legend. In the time of the Goths, Wamba was in the act of ploughing 
a field, and with the goad in his hand stimulated his oxen, when the delegates of 


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Cathedral of Guimaraés. 


the nobility came to him to announce his accession to the throne. Surprised. and 
incredulous, Wamba, who had never thought of obtaining the crown, replied that he 
would be king when his goad, which he struck into the ground as he spoke, should 
bring forth leaves. By a wonderful effect of vegetation, or, rather, as the legend 
says, by the miraculous intervention of Heaven, the goad took root immediately, and 
was suddenly covered with branches, leaves, and fruit. The remembrance of this 
prodigy is not confined to the church, for in front of Nossa-Senhora da Oliveira, the 
Padrao (monument) stands, a witness of the worship yielded to the tradition of the 


olive tree. This monument, a small Gothic building of the early part of the four- 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 8) 


teenth century, and due to the piety of Dom Joao I., was raised close to the spot 
where the miracle is supposed to have occurred; and the very olive tree of Wamba, 
or at least a shoot from it, is there still, surrounded by an iron railing, spreading 
forth its branches, young and vigorous, yet honored, venerated, and almost worshipped 
by every succeeding generation for the last ten centuries. 

The Cathedral is a nice old building, but it has received some grievous mutila- 
tions without, and has been miserably Italianized within. The cloisters are venerable 
and tolerably extensive. We were there at an early hour, and mass was going on 
at one of the altars, and there was a good number of people in the church, engaged 
in their private devotions. We were shown, in the sacristy, the pelote worn by Dom 
Joao I. at the battle of Aljubarrota, which was fought August 14, 1385, and a silver 
altar, in the form of a triptych, representing the different events connected with Our 
Lord’s nativity, taken from the portable chapel of Don Juan, King of Castile, after 
the same battle. The anniversary of this victory is still kept at Guimaraés, as a 
day of religious rejoicing. Guimaraés is a manufacturing town of about nine thou- 
sand inhabitants. | 

We resumed our journey, early on the following morning, towards Amarante. 
Our way lay up a steep mountain ascent of some difficulty to both ourselves and 
our beasts, but affording us a glorious prospect of the city we had left, the plain 
on which it stands, the mountains by which it is surrounded, and the quintas and 
villages interspersed among them. We soon afterwards got on the Serra de Santa 
Catarina, along which the road led us up and down, here and there, on this side and 
on that, continually. The ride was, however, splendid— the mountains at one time ex- 
panding so as to form a plain; at another, approaching so as to contract it into a 
valley; and at another, huddled together as if they would jostle one another, with 
verdure sufficient to take off any appearance of barrenness, — rendering the scenery, 
everywhere magnificent, more interesting for being thus diversified. 

From Amarante, which contained nothing remarkable and offered wretched accom- 
modations, we continued our journey, and began to ascend the pass of Amarante by 
a fine road. ach side of the pass was clothed with magnificent verdure ; and the 
higher we ascended, the more glorious did the scene become. As we approached the 
summit, vegetation seemed gradually to languish; the trees were neither so thick nor 
so forward; the herbage became more scanty and less bright and lively, until at length 
there was almost an appearance of wildness and desolation. The descent of the pass 
partook of this character for a considerable distance; the heights under which we were 
proceeding were bare, or thinly covered with trees of stunted growth, scattered here 
and there, few and distant: whilst the other side was lined with mountains, whose tops 
were sometimes brought together like sea-waves, while thei bases were far, far below, 


out of our sight. The scenery could scarcely be said to be beautiful; but it was grand 


10 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


and majestic, and struck us the more, from the contrast it afforded to what we had 
just before passed through. However, as we got farther down, it became softer and 
more pleasing, and the verdure increased in richness and luxuriance; but still it was 
altogether of a different character from that on the ascent. 

We went through Mezaofrio, a long, straddling, and untidy place, and soon after 
reached the Douro, along which lay the chief part of our remaining journey. Its 
banks were steep and precipitous, and withal very beautiful, being principally coy- 
ered with vines down to the water’s edge. We were now in the midst of the wine 
country, and could see, here and there among the vineyards, quintas which during the 
vintage are occupied by the merchants. 

Our journey to Thomar was remarkable for nothing save the vile inns, and the 
wretched accommodation they afforded. The road took us through a varied country, — 
now, as over the Serra Hstrella, rngged and mountainous, afterwards, as we approached 
Thomar, flat and uninteresting, but well cultivated and fertile. Thomar, a very pretty, 
clean-looking town, pleasantly situated on the river Nabao, claims the attention of the 
traveller as possessing the finest architectural treasure in the whole kingdom, — the 
Convent of the Military Order of Christ: 

This order was founded in 1338 by King Diniz, who declared its knights the heirs 
and successors of the Order of the Temple, suppressed in 1312. At first established 
at Castel Marim, opposite the African coast, the head-quarters of the Order of Christ 
were, in 1320, transferred to Thomar, where they remained until the law of 1834 closed 
all the monastic establishments of the kingdom. Masters of the property and privileges 
formerly held by the Templars, possessing twenty-one towns and four hundred and 
seventy-two commanderies, these knights inaugurated a new era in the world’s history. 
Taking the initiative of great maritime discoveries, they obtained, under their grand- 
master, the Infant Henry, son of Dom Joao I., the exclusive monopoly of distant and 
extended navigation, and became famous by their wonderful exploits. It was their 
banner that Vasco de Gama bore to India, — their banner that Alvarez Cabral planted 
on the shores of the Brazils. The above will enable the reader to perceive the idea 
that the architect has aimed at implying in his work, and of which a portion of the 
Casa do Capitulo (Chapter House) gives a good specimen. Beneath the cross, emblem 
of their order, and which, alternately with the cross of Aviz, forms the crest of the para- 
pet, a line of armillary spheres, running along a balustrade, show the bent of the thoughts 
of the inhabitants of the cloisters; as do also the ropes carved in stone, rove through 
rings, — here seeming to bind the buttresses to the building they support, there coiling 
loosely round the pillars. The carving round the circular window represents a sail 
brailed up in loose folds; the ornaments of a buttress at one of the angles are clasped 
by a broad buckled belt, those of the buttress opposite by a cable, while carved and 
chiselled anchors, cables, coral, and marine plants supply the subjects of decoration in 


profusion. Having ascended a noble flight of steps, we passed into the church through 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 11 


a beautiful cloistered court, wherein several knights had been buried. The sanctuary 


is circular, and in the centre of it the 


high altar, under an octagonal canopy of ; ——— 


stone, gorgeously gilt and painted, and 


supported by very massive pillars. The 


great entrance on the south is indescrib- 


ably rich, adorned with images of the 


Virgin and Child, of bishops, saints, and 


doctors of the church. The west end, 


too, is covered with gorgeous carving. 


The church-bell is the largest in Portu- 
gal. The Casa do Capitulo, or Chapter oe 
House, built by D. Manoel, is a long, low . it 
room, with a stone roof, under the Coro > al j 
Alto, and of which the portal (a view ie 2 
of which we here give) is the chef @euvre en, 
of the architect. On the tympanum of : 1 by is | eh a 
the archway is a screen richly decorated Pie om As ie a oa ast 
with a dozen statues, of which that of x fi Me ) i iH iy ‘ fiat i 
the Virgin occupies the centre. From i By { 4 Wa fart e “4 a 
the windows of the monastery are ob- a a 2 oe (OE 
tained magnificent views of the town : aM ig * i : ae 
and a wide expanse of country. | eee i Q " iy : ge L uf 

From Thomar we proceeded on our |) ce : - pe pine eS oe ate 
° tt wa i ( SoH 
journey through Ourem—a town on a “jee aoe ee Ie 
hill, walled round, and old, dirty, and ili, Nid fo Z ai ja 
ruinous —to Batalha, where we _ parted, it 2 asl 
with the expression of mutual good i ca . 
wishes, from our muleteer, who had ac- ! med 


‘companied us all the way from Vianna, 


hae 
I i ia | ae 
| ta | : Ce 
a 
(in ‘ | Md | ON 
if i < i f i in ee 
ae 
ee 


and, on the whole, served us very well. 


As soon as we reached Batalha, we 


went to the Conventual Church, which 


Gi a 

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il i ys 
che 


! i 5 “ily 


formerly belonged to the Dominicans, — 


225 


a structure of stupendous magnificence, 


the architectural glory of Portugal. ‘Thus 
we first saw it, in the dusky twilight, a a Ty | = ES 
time not unfavorable for a general view, 


as the gloom of departing day was cal- Portal of the Chapter House. 


12 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


culated to increase our impressions of its solemnity and grandeur. We of course re- 
turned to it the following day for a more particular examination. It stands in the 
centre of an open space, around which are built the houses of the village. How it 
strikes one on first entering! The long and lofty nave, eight massive piers on each 
side, to which, however, their height imparts an appearance of lightness, — the sombre 


aisles, the noble clerestory and vaulted roof,— all together in a manner awed us with a 


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Tomb in the Interior of the Conventual Church. 


sense of its sublimity (see page 13). At the south-west of the nave is the Chapel of 
the Founder, Dom Joao I.,— a most superb building, sixty-six feet square, distinct from 
the main building, but entered from it through a beautiful arch. The tomb of himself 
and his excellent queen, Philippa of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt, is in the 
centre, under a lofty lantern, supported by eight pillars. They are represented in marble, 
lying side by side on a slab about seven feet from the ground. She died of the plague 


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MONASTERY OF BATALHA. 


14 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


in 1416, in the arms of her husband, who, notwithstanding all the remonstrances of his 
council, never left her bedside. He died August 14, 1433, the anniversary of the day 
on which he gained the great victory of Aljubarrota, im honor of which he founded 
this noble church and the convent to which it belonged. The helmet which he wore 
in that battle is kept in the Sacristy, as well as his sword, and is so weighty that 
one cannot but wonder how he could ever have borne it on his head. ‘To the north 
of the Choir, but separated from it by the Sacristy, is the Chapter House, an exquisite 
room, sixty-four feet square, with handsome windows and beautiful vaulted roof. 

It is impossible to give any idea of the magnificence of the cloisters, which lie to 
the west of the Chapter House, alongside of the Nave. They enclose a square of 
a hundred and eighty feet, each side containing seven windows of from three to six 
lights, and surmounted by deep tracery of the richest character. At the north-west 
corner is a lovely fountain, of most delicate workmanship. To the right of the Grand 
Altar a passage leads to a doorway of which the decorations are lavished with fairy- 
like profusion (see page 15), and which opens into the unfinished chapel. Com- 
menced by Manoel, it was intended to be his sepulchre; but the king altered his 
mind before the monument was completed, gathered together elsewhere -his artists and 
workmen and the resources of his kingdom, and began on the banks of the Tagus 
another edifice destined to perpetuate the memory of the then recent maritime dis- 
coveries. This unfinished chapel is an octagon, at each side of which is a_ lofty 
arch, forming the entrance to a chapel, lighted by three splendid lancet windows. 
Over these are massive and highly-wrought pillars, which, however, have been carried 
up but a little way. The richness, beauty, and grandeur of the work are beyond 
description. Never having been roofed in, it is open to the sky, exposed to the ele 
ments, and will probably so remain until it crumbles under the attacks of time. The 
west door of the church is wonderfully magnificent. It is surmounted by the Cor- 
onation of the Blessed Virgin in stone, below which are the twelve Apostles in 
niches, our Lord and the four Evangelists, while images of saints, &c., in great num- 
bers, form the soffits of the entrance. The lantern of the Founder's Chapel was origi- 
nally surmounted by an octagonal spire, but this was thrown down in the. great 
earthquake of 1755. There was also another spire at the north-west of the north 
transept, which was destroyed by lightning about fifty years ago. It has, however, been 
lately rebuilt. The exterior length of the building is four hundred and sixteen feet, 
the interior two hundred and sixty-six feet, and the height to the apex of the vaulting 
ninety feet. 

We left Batalha about half past six next morning for Alcobaca, an insignificant 
town, but well known for its ancient abbey, the shrine of all artists who visit the Pen- 
insula. Wishing to show his veneration for St. Bernard, Affonso, in 11438, put the 


kingdom he was then striving to conquer under the protection of Our Lady of Clair- 


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DOORWAY OF THE CHAPEL, BATALHA. 


16 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


vaux, and declared his crown feudatory of the abbey of that name, binding himself 
and his successors to pay it a perpetual tribute of fifty maravedis of pure gold every 
year. In 1147 the warrior marched towards Coimbre, to deliver Santarem from the 
domination of the Almorayides; and on reaching the top of the Serra d’Albardos, vowed 
that if he prospered in his undertaking, he would grant to St. Bernard and to the 
monks of his order all the lands he could see from the spot whereon he stood, on that 
side of the mountain where the waters run towards the sea. On the 11th of March, 
1147, Affonso entered Santarem, and on the 2d of February following he laid the first 
stone of the monastery, which the abbey of Clairvaux peopled with monks, with Ranul- 
phus for their first abbot. This vast abbey soon became a centre of theological and 
scientific learning, and a place of deposit for the historical documents that were, later 
on, the archives of the kingdom. Favored by succeeding kings, and receiving constantly 


rich endowments, it prospered to that degree, that at times as many as nine hundred 


monks were sheltered beneath its roof, and it held fourteen towns with their dependen- - 


cies under its own jurisdiction, entirely independent of the royal authority. The only 
thing due to the king by the abbey was a pair of boots or shoes, at his choice, when- 
ever it pleased him to visit the monks. To adequately describe this magnificent pile 
would require a volume. It is entirely abandoned, and fast falling into decay. The 
church, which contains the tombs of Affonso Il. and of Affonso III., and of their 
queens, D. Urraca and D. Brites,— also the tombs of several Infants and Infantas, — 
has been restored out of its original character exteriorly, and nothing but the main 
door of the original remains. The interior, in spite of some Ionic pillars and gilt 
altars in the worst taste, still retains its noble character. It is lit by forty-eight 
windows of splendid stained glass. 

Santarem, the next place we made a halt at, is one of the most celebrated towns 
in Portugal, and formerly its capital. It is situated upon a high hill, is enclosed by a 
wall, and contains about eight thousand inhabitants, who seem spread oyer a tolerably 
wide surface. 

At six the next morning we embarked on a boat which was towed down the canal 
to Villa-Franca, where it meets the steamer which goes down the Tagus to Lisbon. 
The Tagus is a noble river; some part of the way it was at least five or six miles broad, 
but before we reached Lisbon, it became narrower. The country on the south bank 
was generally flat, but on the other side it was diversified with hills, towns, and villages, 
and planted with olives and vines. On the outskirts of the capital are many country 
houses. The situation of Lisbon, standing on seyeral hills on the right bank of the 
Tagus, is truly magnificent; and so is the view of it from the river. We landed at the 
Praga do Commercio, which is said to be the finest square in Europe. Its length is six 
hundred and fifteen feet, its breadth five hundred and fifty. It is open on the south to 


the Tagus; but the three other sides are surrounded with buildings, comprising the 


Stes 


i 


=r 


CASTLE OF PINTRA DE CINTRA. 


18 


VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


- 


Exchange, Custom House, and other public offices connected with the commerce and 


government of the country. 


met 


Gate of the Castle of Pintra de Cintra. 


with in other parts, one of which, 


In the centre is an immense equestrian statue in bronze 


of Dom José, the only one ever erected 
to a Portuguese monarch, and considered 
of remarkable excellence. ‘The sculptor 
was Joaquim Machado de Castro, a na- 
tive of Portugal, who died in 1822, at 
the age of ninety. 

The road from Lisbon to Cintra, 
whither we went by omnibus, is good, 
but there is nothing particularly interest- 
ing in the country through which one 
The first view of Cintra which 


we obtain as it is entered in this direc- 


passes. 


tion, is wild and rugged, consisting prin- 
cipally of a succession of rocky peaks, 
rising to an immense elevation in naked 
barrenness. When, however, it is fairly 
reached, there are other features added 
to the scene, which quite change its 
character. Below these rocks, which seem 
to have been formed by some natural 
convulsion, is a mountain-height covered 
with all kinds and degrees of verdure, 
sloping down into a valley of the sweet- 
est luxuriance. The royal palace is a 
large irregular building of Moorish origin, 
as is evident from its architecture and 
construction, but with many additions 
from successive Portuguese sovereigns. 


(See page 17.) 


exterior, were surrounded with arabesque 


The windows, on the 
ornaments. One of the rooms, with a 
marble floor, contained in its centre a 
circular reservoir filled with water, around 
which, it is said, its first inhabitants used 
to luxuriate in the heat of the day. There 


are also fountains and jets d@eau to be 


in a court adjoining the bath-~oom, is 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 1s, 


sometimes employed to sprinkle visitors unawares. All these bring to mind the foun- 
ders of the palace: but it is also rich in historical reminiscences of a later date. Thus, 
one room is pointed out in which the unfortunate Sebastian held his last audience, and 
the chair in which he sat, before he set out on his unhappy expedition into Africa, 
from which he never returned. Another, with a handsome tiled floor, part of which is 
worn by the footsteps of Dom Affonso VI., who was here kept prisoner for the last 
fifteen years of his life, after he had been most deservedly compelled to abdicate the 
throne. Another, the roof of which is adorned with the royal arms of Portugal, the 


escutcheons of the sons and daughters of Dom Manoel, and those of the Portuguese 


THU 


i 


WW 


IMEC 


MN 
PANY 
INSTRU 


Mafra. 


nobility. To this apartment there is a magnificent marble doorway of Moorish archi- 
tecture, and from its windows with the aid of a glass we had a very good view of 
the palace of Mafra. | 

Mafra (a view of which we here present), whither we proceeded, a convent, 
church, and palace in one, was commenced in 1717 by Dom Joao Y., on the plans of 
a German named Ludovici. Situated, by a royal whim, in the midst of a gloomy and 
barren spot, this edifice, of a formal and regular, yet handsome style of architecture, 
forms a square of about two hundred and fifty yards on each side. It contains eight 


hundred and seventy apartments, five thousand two hundred windows, three hundred 


20 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


cells, and three churches, of which the principal is a copy of St. Peter’s at Rome. 
Its bells, of which the various steeples contain one hundred and twenty-eight, were 
cast in Paris and Genoa; and the chimes, imported from Antwerp and Amsterdam, 
cost fifty thousand crowns of gold. In order to reward the zeal for religion evinced 
by this undertaking in the cause of religion, the Pope conferred on the King of Por- 
tugal and his successors the title of “Most Faithful.” 

Mafra ruined Portugal. When the king died in 1750, the treasury was empty, not 
enough money being left to pay for Masses for the deceased. Twenty-seven years 


later the Marquis of Pombal resigned his power, after having reorganized the army, re- 


Tower of Belem. 


created the navy, founded a hundred establishments of administration and education, 
having rebuilt Lisbon from its ruins of 1755, and left the coffers of the state rich with 
a hundred and fifty-six millions. The military academy is now established at Mafra, 1 
Our last excursion from Lisbon was to Belem, whither we went by a boat which 
we took from the Quay de Sodre, and which carried us down the Tagus through a 
crowd of men-of-war and merchant vessels. We landed at the foot of the famous 
Tower of Belem (see accompanying engraving), which was built by King Joao, sur- 
named the “perfect prince.” It formerly stood on a rock in the midst of the river ; 


but a natural deposit of sand has since then connected it on the north side with the 


1 a 


\ 
i 


\a 2! 
) ta) || 


i . 


PILL Te 


“116 


ZB 


|| 
na F4 ZZ is t 
A= ET 


——$——s 


TO ae 


DOORWAY OF SANTA MARIA, BELEM. 


22 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


shore. The convent formerly belonged to the Jeronymites, and was founded by Dom 
Manoel in 1499, as a thank-offering to God for the success and safe return of Vasco de 
Gama, on the very spot whence he set out on his memorable expedition to India. The 
church is yery rich and striking, built in a style between the Moresque and the Norman, 
in which, however, the characteristics of the former seem to predominate. Over the 
portal (see 21) is placed, looking towards the sea, the statue of Dom Henrique, Duke 
of Visen, the great forerunner of naval discovery; while on each side above the doors 
stand the Founder and his queen. ‘The nave and aisles are of the same height; the 
pillars are highly adorned and of remarkable lightness; the roof is of stone, and so is 
the west gallery. ‘The windows in the nave and transepts, which were built by Dom 
Manoel, are circular-headed; those in the choir, which was erected by his son, Dom Joao 
IIl., are square. The remains of both these monarchs and their queens, as well as 
those of the Cardinal-king Henrique, and Dom Affonso VI., lie in this church, which, 
after Batalha, and perhaps Thomar, is by far the most splendid and interesting of all 
we have seen in Portugal. The Sacristy, which was formerly the laboratory of the 
convent, is adorned with pictures illustrative of the life of St. Jerome. 

And now, having brought the reader so far through Portugal, if we haye suc- 
ceeded in gaining his sympathies for that small kingdom, our object is attamed. It is 
far from being a large nation, but it has played a part in the past that puts it on a 
level with great countries, and it is artistically and historically most interesting. The 
Portuguese, far from resting on the laurels won in the past, appreciates the present, 
and its events and progress. Intellect, temperament, and instinct — all appear to be 
reawakened in him. Some prejudices that retard his progress, he may still retain; but 
they must soon yield to truth and reason, and then nothing can prevent the present 


from comparing favorably with so glorious a past. 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 23 


WESTERN AFRICA. 


* PON the north-western corner of Africa, its shores washed on the 
+ west by the Atlantic and on the north by the Mediterranean, lies 
> a country which, fifty years ago, was generally spoken of as the 


Empire of Morocco. Any European notion of an empire must, 


however, be strangely inapplicable to a territory for which its six 
EPs or seven million inhabitants of diverse origin have absolutely no 
\ | if p name. The Algerians call it El-Carb, “The West ;” to Arab writers 
Vy i | P it was known as the Maugreb, “The Remote West;” and to the 


ll Mh e e e 
y i \ inhabitant of Morocco it is simply “The Master’s Land,” the Beled 


onl} of this or that sultan: yesterday, Abder-Rhaman’s Beled ; to-day, 

i that of Muley-Abbas. Between the status this fact reveals, and the 

Zth social conditions implied by our modern ideas of country and nation- 

J ality, exists a world-wide difference. And yet, but fifteen miles away 

Nat from Tangier, the most northern town of Morocco, lies Gibraltar, 

ZN the English fortress, with which the African town and its adjacent 
country are in almost daily communication. 

-Neither has there been lack of time in which this population might be civilized. 
Hight centuries before the Christian era, Hanno the Carthaginian, had brought them 
news of the arts and sciences of the ancient world; and later, they were never long 
without dealings of some kind with the great Empire of Rome. Still further, both 
before and since that time, scarcely ever has one of the broad, strong currents of 
migration, which have changed the face of the earth, failed to sweep over Morocco. 
Iberians from Spain; Berbers, coming down, at some date unknown, from the high table- 
lands of Asia; Hebrews and Syrians, escaping by thousands from successive disas- 
ters of Tyre, Samaria, and Judea; Vandals from the remote north; Arabs from Yemen, 
driven forth by Mahomet to the conquest of the world; blacks of Soudan, bought 
or stolen from their native country: —all branches of the human race have cast some 
rootlets into this soil. But no one has been strong enough to put an end to the 
predatory wanderings of the nomadic life, and replace them by stable and fruitful agri- 
cultural industry; to call forth the city from the encampment of shepherds, the lair 


of pirates, or the tyrant’s stronghold. The cities of Morocco, familiar as are the 


24 , VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


names of a few of them, were really nothing better than this; and, as they have 
ceased to be this, have by degrees become depopulated and have gone to decay, 
following the example of so many others, whose nameless ruins, on the banks of 
dried-up rivers, will one day astonish the archeologist and the antiquary. 

At the same time, the natural advantages of Morocco are very remarkable. Its 
climate is sufficiently temperate and healthy; the chain of mountains, covered with 
perpetual snow, that le between it and Sahara, defending it from the scorching desert 
winds, while a sea-breeze perpetually refreshes the western coast. The rains in winter 
are frequent, and add greatly to the fertility of the country, which produces corn, 
oranges and lemons, grapes, figs, and olives, to an extent which might return an inex- 
haustible revenue, were there a fixed and moderate government, and anything like 
industry on the part of the inhabitants. 

The Moors, however, cultivate their lands only in proportion to their own per- 
sonal wants, so that at least two-thirds of the country lies waste. Hence the wild 
palm-tree grows in abundance, of which shepherds, mule-drivers, and camel-drivers 
make a thousand uses as necessity compels. They gather the leaves, and make from 
them mats, fringes, baskets, hats, large wallets to carry corn, twine, ropes, girths, 
and covers for their pack-saddles. They heat their ovens with its wood, and its 
fruit is wholesome, though not specially palatable. 

Our illustration represents the city of Morocco, ‘one of the three capitals of the 
country. It is six miles in circumference, and contains sixty or seventy thousand 
inhabitants. A wall thirty feet in height surrounds it, having eleven gates, and towers 
at intervals of fifty yards. This wall is built of tappia-work, a mixture of lime and 
sand, of remarkable strength. The mosques, which are the only public buildings, 
except the Palace, worth noticing, are more numerous than splendid; but one of them 
is ornamented with a high square tower, built of hewn stone, and visible at a con- 
siderable distance into the country. The streets are very narrow, dirty, and irregular, 
the houses nearly all one story, and large open spaces, many acres in extent, lie in 
different parts of the city. 

The Elcaissera is that part of the town where valuable articles are kept for 
sale. It consists of a number of small shops, formed in the walls of the houses 
about a yard from the ground, of such a height within as just to admit a man to 
sit in one of them cross-legged. The drawers and shelves are so arranged around 
him that when he serves his customers, who are standing meanwhile out in the 
street, he can reach any article he wants without moving. ‘These shops, which are 
found in all the towns of the empire, afford an excellent example of the indolence 
of the Moors. Besides this, there are three daily markets, in different parts of the 
town, where provisions are sold, and two weekly fairs, or markets, for the sale of 


cattle. A singular feature of the city of Morocco is the existence of large reservoirs 


& 


‘ : ue 
Bat => von 


VIEW OF THE CITY OF MOROCCO. 


26 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. | 


of water, in the centre of the town as well as in the suburbs, fed by wooden pipes 
connected with the neighboring streams. 

The city lies in a beautiful valley, having a lower range of mountains on the 
north, and the great chain of Atlas, about twenty miles away, on the south and east. 
The country immediately around it is a fertile plain, abounding in clumps of palm- 
trees and flowering shrubs, and watered by small and numerous mountain streams. 

The Palace is an ancient building, lying outside the city, and inclosed by high 
walls of its own. It has several Gothic gateways of hewn stone, leading into spacious 


open courts, where troops are reviewed and public business transacted. ‘The apart- 


Moorish Cemetery in Morocco. 


ments of the emir consist of several irregular, square, whitewashed pavilions lying in 
the midst of gardens. The finest of these is called the Mogadore, from the chief 
seaport of Morocco, and is described as a really elegant structure. It is built of 
hewn stone, and has many handsome windows, and is roofed with varnished tiles of 
various colors. The principal room is floored with blue and white checkered tiling, 
its ceiling is curiously covered with carved and painted wood, and its stuccoed walls 
ornamented with looking-glasses and watches, regularly disposed in glass cases. Hand- 
some Moorish rugs, and divans covered with rich stuffs, are scattered throughout 


the rooms. The gardens within the walls of the palace are very neatly kept. ‘They 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 27 


contain olive and orange trees, and many flowering shrubs, and at every turn in 
the ayenues that wind through them, some new fountain is revealed to sight, send- 
ing up its slender jet against the rich dark background of the shrubbery. 

3 The second illustration we offer from Morocco represents a city of the dead, also 
lying outside the walls of the capital, but on the opposite side from the Palace. No 
Christian emblem nor word of Christian faith relieves the sombre sadness of this 
dreary place; rude stone pillars, surmounted by a turban, mark the Moorish tombs, 
and the wild beast steals through the moonlight to his lair in some neglected grave. 


Following the Atlantic coast southward, in the track of the Carthaginian Hanno, 


tN 
LCN TA 


View of St. Louis. 


— who, with his sixty vessels and thirty thousand emigrants, sailed past the Pillars 
of Hercules, in 570 3B. c., and kept on his adventurous way, it is believed, as far as 
the modern Sierra Leone,—we come, after passing the Sahara, to the mouth of the 
Senegal, the great river of Senegambia. . | 

Here is situated the French colonial town of St. Louis, erected by Europeans 
in the early part of the seventeenth century (see above). Originally it was little 
more than a fort, but by degrees quite a settlement gathered upon the island of 
St. Louis and on both shores of the river. The streets of the town are laid out 


with mathematical regularity parallel to the line of the river’s bank; but the sandy 


28 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


island lies so low that at every freshet the whole town used to be submerged, till 
quite recently dikes of brick-work have been erected, and the level of the streets 
raised, to bring them above high-water mark. 

The Senegal makes its way to the sea through a channel which it digs for itself 
across a sand-bar called Barbary Point. This bar changes its position constantly, 
and soundings must be taken every day to render the entrance to the river safe. 
Even with the utmost precaution, from January to March, sailing-vessels scarcely 
dare cross the bar; but crowds of little fishing-shallops go out every morning, and 
on their return, at about three o’clock in the afternoon, it is a strange and ani- 


mated picture to see them make their way across the belt of seething white water, 


Bakel. 


eighty rods broad, which lies between the quiet sea outside and the quiet river 
within. 

In its lower course, the Senegal divides into many arms, forming low, sandy 
islands, but finally gathers into a single stream at the bar, which is its sole outlet to 
the ocean. Its banks become more animated as we ascend, and vegetation grows more 
beautiful. Many little French settlements have been founded, and suggest the idea 
that civilization will thus slowly make its way even into this inaccessible continent of 
Africa. About three hundred miles up the river is situated the town and fortress 
of Bakel (see above). From the top of the wall a beautiful and very extensive 
view greets the eye. The river lies, in all its windings, for many miles full in view, 
its rapids and cascades here and there. glittering in the sun. A magnificent plain, 


watered by many little streams, and broken by wooded _hillocks, stretches away into 


SCENES [INV MANY LANDS. 29 


the distance, and the horizon is outlined by high and misty mountain ranges of great 
height. The vegetation is wonderful, and equally so is the abundance and _ variety 
of animal life. Flocks of ostriches and bustards, troops of antelopes, the beautiful 
white pintado, three or four species of baboons, and monkeys in great variety, per- 
form the ornamental and comic roles in the great spectacular drama perpetually going 
on before the traveller who explores the Senegal, while hippopotami and elephants 
support the heavy business, and there are crocodiles and lions, panthers, leopards, 
and hyenas in plenty, to bring in at any moment the tragic element to an unlim- 


ited extent. 
A hundred miles above Bakel is the great Cataract of Gouina. At this point 


= == = = = s 
— —=S == 
—= = = — E = ==> = 
= = ——= = = 


Cataract of Gouina. 


the Senegal, six or seven hundred yards in breadth, falls over an irregular rocky 
wall, which we give above, so broken and worn away by the water that instead of one 


broad sheet, there are a dozen distinct cascades, presenting a scene of extreme beauty 


ri 


and singularity. 

The banks of the river abound in groves of superb palm-trees, of the variety 
shown in the illustration, page 31. A French officer, M. Mage, who explored the head 
waters of the Senegal about ten years ago, speaks of these trees as follows: “At 
about half past eight we arrived at Ouakha, a village situated in the midst of a 
beautiful plain, surrounded by palm-trees loaded with fruit. I decided to encamp 


under their shadow. As soon as we were established, Sambo Yoro asked my per- 


30 VOYAGES AND’ TRAVELS. 


mission to cut some of the fruit. I did not object, and he climbed a small tree, 


for some of them about us were not less than sixty feet in height. But he had 
no sooner begun to knock off some of the fruit than the people of the ‘village ob- 
jected. This was the more to be regretted as it was just ripe for use; later the_ 
milk hardens, but was now liquid and fresh, and as sweet as that in the cocoanut. 
But Famahra, another of my men, who, like the village people, had never before 
tasted the fruit of this species of palm while it was fresh, now found out how good 


it was, and began to contest the point with his countrymen, averring that these 


| 


Hombori Mountains. 


trees belonged to the good God, for it was He who had planted them, and that no 
man had a right to deny them to others. We 


proved the stronger, and knocked 
off several clusters of the fruit. 


Curious to relate, the villagers, having ventured to 


taste them, at once came over to our side, and in a few moments every accessible 


tree was plundered. JI am sure our passage through the village will long be remem- 


bered, where we revealed a delicious article of food to those who had lived near 
it all their lives, waiting till the fruit should fall to the ground, when, instead of a 
delicate flavor, it has the smell and taste of turpentine, and instead of cream, offers 
but a stringy almond.” 


From the Senegal M. Mage made his way to the upper waters of the Niger. 


ge ee ee 


ey Zit 


aol = 


FRING: 
WATT Rn 


TUT fa \| Hh | | | | iI 


Sy 


HLL | 


——— 


~~ 


iA 
1] 
i 
“ G ; 
eX 
\ \ ag 
> 
~ rege 
Ba35 


FOREST NEAR THE SENEGAL. 


32 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


Imagining ourselves companions of his journey, and pursuing it still further down 
this greatest and most mysterious of all the rivers of Western Africa, one picture, 
the Hombori Mountains (see page 30), haunts us like the landscape of a dream. 
Behind these perpendicular walls, where nature seems to have tried her hand at 
building medizval chateaux, dwell one of the rudest and most untamable of the say- 
age tribes of Africa. In the fields below they raise millet and pasture a few sheep, 
but for the most part they live by rapine and plunder : still another . proof, if any 
were needed, that the most poetic and beautiful surroundings have no power to 
soften the savage heart of man. 

Resuming our route along the western sea-coast of Africa, we round Cape Verde, 


and find sheltered behind it, on the south, the island of Goree, an arid rock which 


id 


j al 


Government House at Goree. 


commands a superb harbor, where ships may always ride in safety, however wild 
the weather outside. 

The island is crowned by a fort which contains barracks and cisterns for water. 
The Government House, which we present above, is a handsome structure recently 
erected. Below, near the water’s edge, the town is densely populated, and a hive 
of busy industry. The emancipation of its former slaves has reduced the population 
to a hard-working life ; sober and enterprising, they seek in traffic of various kinds 
the means of supplying their daily wants. The houses they inherit from their ancestors 
give them a certain degree of comfort, but articles of luxury are scarce, and the 


dull look of the town no longer suggests the festivities for which it once was 
famous. 


The next illustration we present gives a view of the interior court of the post- 


house at Grand Bassam, a seaport on the Gold Coast.’ This place has been for 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 33 


some time the head-quarters of French trade in palm-oil, and as such has attained 
to considerable importance. For twenty years a French garrison was maintained at 
Grand Bassam, but since 1870 it has been withdrawn. 

Our last illustration from the Western Coast of Africa represents the Sacred 
Islands of Lake Jonanga; only a wild and solitary scene, peopled with water-fowl, 
but of weird and almost tragic interest, as the central shrine of that primitive fetich- 
worship, the earliest and rudest of all the natural religions. 

Taking for our guide a French explorer, who, starting from the colony of the 
Gaboon, visited, in 1864, many of the neighboring tribes, we will visit this savage 
shrine. 


“The next day,” he says, “we set out for those famous fetich islands of which 


@ppers & DAR 


Interior Court of the Post-House at Grand Bassam. 


we had heard so much, accompanied by the king of Aroumbe, who was attired in an 
ancient corporal’s uniform, and by some dozen intelligent-looking boys, specially con- 
secrated to the fetich-worship, and wearing a kind of livery of their office, com- 
posed chiefly of strings of beads of all colors and sizes, bracelets of red chenille, 
and rings of yellow copper. 

“Let the reader imagine two islets, or rather two immense bouquets of verdure, 
mirrored in the most translucent water, and literally covered with a cloud of birds 
of every shape and hue, who evidently lived here in absolute security from moles- 
tation. As we sailed along, a great ibis, perched on a rock within a few feet of 
us, watched the passing boat with evident curiosity, rising on tiptoe, and agitating 
his pink wings bordered with fine bands of black. Above our heads a species of 


vulture of a yellowish white, and some great black birds of the fish-hawk family 


34 : VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


circled in the air. More tranquil in their temperament, immense flocks of birds had 
settled upon some tall trees near the water. ; 

“It is scarcely probable that to these peaceful denizens the sombre reputation 
of the Sacred Islands can be due. Along with them, or perhaps in them, are under- 
stood to dwell mysterious genii. Our sailors were evidently very much frightened as 
we drew near land. But Yondogowiro, the fetich king, was there to appease the angry 
powers. Nothing could be more droll than to see this little old negro, in his mili- 
tary coat too high in the neck and too short in the sleeves, arise in the boat, and 


stretch out supplicating hands towards the penguins, a bird particularly well suited 


Sacred Islands on Lake Jonanga. 


to receive with due gravity the homage offered him. With one hand the old man 
shook a little bell attached to a long handle, the emblem of his priestly authority; 
with the other he crumbled biscuit into the water; then he addressed to the genii 
this invocation: ‘Here are white men who haye come to see you. Do not make 
them ill. They bring you presents of biscuits and brandy. Do not kill them, but 
let them go back safe to the Gaboon.’ 

“The birds graciously accepted the biscuit. The brandy proved more agreeable 
to the fetich king than to his feathered divinities; and we were assured of high favor 


from the occult powers. We did not, however, insist upon our right to land on 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 35 


either of the islands, where, in fact, it would be almost difficult to find a place for 
the sole of one’s foot, so crowded was the vegetation down to the very water’s edge; 
and after sailing around them, we returned to Aroumbe, and dismissed our escort, 
adding a few more strings of beads for the toilet of the lads, and a further supply 


of biscuit and brandy for the personal use and behoof of the fetich king.” 


36 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


NORTHERN AFRICA. 


E commence our wanderings along the northern coast of 


that mysterious continent which has for so long attracted and 
baffled explorers from all the civilized world, at a little town 
Sef in the western district of Algeria, whose very name is French, 
and the date of its foundation nothing earlier than the extremely 


modern period, 1844. 


For all that, the little city of Nemours is full of historic sou- 
venirs. Here, in 1847, resided the Duke d’Aumale, governor-general of 
Algeria, when Abdel-Kader was brought before him to make his long- 
delayed submission to French authority. Stately and silent, the Arab 


warrior asked but one favor of his captors: it was that he might not be 


taken to Algiers, where he feared the shame of being publicly exhibited 


as a prisoner. The following day, when the Duke d’Aumale was return- 


ing to the city after a review of the troops, the desert chief came to 
meet him, riding his famous black mare, dismounted, and offered him 
the animal, saying, “Take her, and may she bring you good fortune !” 

From Cape Noé to Cape Milonia, the African sea-coast, forever gnawed and 
undermined by the Mediterranean waves, rises high and irregular above the sea. 
Here and there this rocky wall is split by a deep and narrow cleft, and down the 
sides of these ravines steal innumerable little threads of water, gathering below 
to form at last a brook of considerable size. Trees plunge their roots into these 
microscopic streamlets, and, in turn, save them from being drunk dry by the summer 
sun. It is at the foot of one of these ravines that the little city of Nemours is 
built, half on land rescued from the sea, half on the slopes covered with Arab gar- 
dens. Above it the cliff is four hundred feet high, and along its crest are yet found 
traces of some ancient city which once stood there, whose very name has long since 
been forgotten. 

Picturesquely built, and half hidden under the great trees of its boulevards, 
Nemours consists of two quite separate districts: one, composed of the two streets 


running parallel to the sea-shore, bears the characteristic name of Bugeauyille ; the 


SCENES [IN MANY LANDS. 37 


other is but a collection of rude barracks. built of boards, and inhabited by Jews and 
Spaniards. The population is for the most part occupied in fishing, in an intermit- 
tent fashion, varied by expeditions along the coast as carriers of the mineral treas- 
ures of Gar-Rouban and Mazis, or the wool and grain of Marnia. A few poor 
little boats are drawn up on the sand; they manage them in the way Homer 
describes, — a manner of proceeding unchanged along the Mediterranean  sea-coast 
since the Trojan war. 

From Nemours to Tlemcen, a distance of about sixty miles, is accomplished on 


horseback in two days. Leaving the sea-coast, we follow the ravine southward, amid 


erat 


Sai imiPieiea MTS 


Nemours. 


vegetable gardens as fine as the best hwertas of Andalusia: here and there the hill- 
side is mined, half-way up, by galleries excavated in search of veins of manganese. 
To this succeeds a dusty road through a rocky region, and presently we come upon 
“the Agha’s Gardens,” where guavas and bananas, the eucalyptus, and many other 
tropical trees and shrubs, delight the eye. With alternations of savage wildness and 
luxuriant verdure our road pursues its way; rarely we meet some traveller ; once, 
a dozen camels, our first sight of a genuine caravan. 

We pass the little Jewish and Arab town of Nedromah, and reach Marnia for 


the night’s lodging. The latter town is of much commercial importance, but offers 


38 VOYAGES AND NTRAVELS 


no attraction to the seeker of the picturesque, unless perhaps it be the motley crowd 
that frequents the market-place. Not ten miles from the frontier of Morocco, it is 
the principal outlet for the wool and grain and cattle of that very fertile country. 
No description could give an idea of the tumultuous traffic going on in the narrow 
streets. There is a crowd gathered from all the neighboring countries, — Europeans, 
Jews, Arabs, Berbers. There is an. incessant trampling of horses, mules, donkeys, 
cattle, and camels with hoarse, discordant voices. There is a mass of every kind 
of merchandise, — dates, drums of figs, blocks of salt, henna, filali (red leather), 
haicks, a thousand objects curious to the European eye. ‘There is a very Babel of 
languages, — French, Arab, Kabyle, Hebrew, Spanish, German, and Italian, and that 
nondescript dialect, a mosaic of them all. O traffic, thou art the great pacificator! 
Anywhere else than in this peaceful market, these people would have met only to 
take each other’s lives. 

Late the next day we reached Tlemcen, which lies on an elevated plateau, in 
the heart of the mountainous district of Oran. It is a little city of ten thousand 
inhabitants: Moors and Berbers and Jews, French, and a few Spaniards and Italians. 
The city is very ancient, and was once the capital of an independent kingdom; but 
its people having offended the Dey of Algiers, he captured and burned it in 1640, 
and reduced the province to submission. From this time it remained Algerian, and 
with the rest of the province was taken by France in 1842. 

The city has been greatly improved since the French conquest; it possesses a 
fine English Garden, very excellent cafés, a public library, and a museum. At the 
same time the native quarters of the town abound in narrow streets and miserable 


one-story houses. The Jews in Tlemcen are numerous and often wealthy; they are, 


as everywhere, intelligent, and many of them speak and write the French language 


fluently, and nearly all the European houses that have been built in the town are 
their property. 

We visited the library and the museum, which are under the same roof with 
the city offices. The library contains twenty-two hundred volumes of the highest 
merit. All the master-works of the human intellect are here, placed gratuitously at 
the public service, and the city council votes annually a considerable sum for the in- 
crease of this precious collection. The museum occupies a magnificent hall, used on 
occasion for balls and concerts. It contains many archeological treasures, among the 
most important, some onyx columns of great beauty, lately discovered in excavations 
at Mansourah. 

The climate of Tlemcen is remarkable for extraordinary variations of temperature, 
— variations as marked from one day to another as from one season to another, and 
often occurring, indeed, in the same day, especially during the summer. Rains are 


abundant; they commence usually in October, and continue, with alternations of fine 


TLEMCEN. 


40 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS, 


\ 


weather, till May or June. The spring rains and the morning fogs, which last into 
July, contribute to give the vegetation a character for permanence which astonishes 
the traveller, during the heats of an African summer. It is a great surprise, after 
having traversed extensive regions utterly parched and withered by the heat, to see 
the green luxuriance of Tlemcen. | 

It was the middle of March when we first arrived, and the very prime of the 
season. <A villa outside the walls attracted us as one of the most beautiful resi- 
dences we had eyer seen, and we obtained permission to visit it. Always and every- 
where an abundance of water; magnificent trees, the ailanthus, the sycamore, the 
acacia, and many great chestnut-trees, all in full foliage on the 20th of March. The 
garden walks were edged with thick borders of violets. This is par excellence the 


flower of Tlemcen, and grows to a surprising size and in great perfection. In De- 


ALEMANORE de BARS See 


Sidi-Bouisrak. 


cember, the narcissus fills the air with its penetrating fragrance ; soon, periwinkles 
spread out their blue petals, surrounded with brilliantly green leaves. Then begin the 
violets, which last three months, giving place at last to the lilacs, the Mahonia of 
the gardens, and the fleur-de-lis of the meadows. Then rose-colored and white acacias 
have their turn, and everything grows with a lavish luxuriance that defies description. 
Of all the trees the olive seems most abundant. We questioned concerning their 
number in the immediate neighborhood of the city. “Fifty thousand at least,” was 
the reply. The territory of Tlemcen contains fifteen hundred and fifty-six acres of gar- 
dens and orchards, six hundred and thirty acres of vineyards, over five thousand 
acres of irrigable land, and thirty thousand acres of pasturage. Much of this fer- 
tility is due to artificial irrigation; one hundred and eighty-four reservoirs of various 


sizes have been constructed, and nearly two hundred miles of canals. 


SCENES [N MANY LANDS. 4] 


During our stay at Tlemcen we made many expeditions in the neighboring country; 
among others, to the village of Bou-Médina, where exists a mosque famous through- 
out the country, and well worthy of its renown. On our way thither we passed 
an Arab cemetery, where, scattered among the tombs, stand a few koubbas, or Ma- 
hometan hermitages, in various stages of dilapidation. They are occupied by mara- 


bouts, or Moslem saints, and much frequented by the faithful, seeking saintly inter- 


ty. 
Mf 
Mi 


a ii, 
: ) 
SS 


i ie i 


ff th 
Ai 


The Mosque of Bou-Médina. 


cession with heaven. Some of these koubbas are very pretty, especially that of Sidi- 
Bouisrak (see page 40), which looks quite like a Christian chapel, and has a bright 
little fountain springing beside it. 

Bou-Médina is perched midway up the side of the mountain-range which over- 
looks Tlemcen. It must be owned that a nearer view of the village is very disenchant- 


ing. The streets, rudely payed with angular stones, are actually breakneck. Most 


? 


42 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


of the houses are in ruins. Those which remain standing are miserable and squalid 
What is really admirable here is nature. Let the tourist take the trouble to climl 
the minaret of the mosque; on its top he will enjoy a splendid panorama, to which 
no words of ours can do justice. The day we saw it great clouds at intervals were 
veiling the sunlight, and their wide shadows swept across the verdant fields, while 
a light breeze bent the tall grain. When one bathes thus in the pure, warm air 
of heaven, how cold and gloomy seem the long cloisters of the mosque! and yet one 
must do it justice: from the heavy knocker of the outside door, to the vaulted roof 


of the inmost shrine, all is remarkable in this vast building. The door, lined with 


plates of copper,—an object of great -pride to all Mussulman beholders ; the im- 
mense court, the inner cloisters, the marble columns, the arabesques of the arches, 
the iman’s chair of painted wood,— all must be examined and admired. 

We were introduced into the tomb of the saint whose name is given to the 
mosque. Imagine a dark little crypt, divided into two equal compartments by a 
carved wooden screen. Half-way up the walls are covered with tiles; the rest is 
adorned with stucco ornaments, washed with green or blue color. A heavy Moorish 
carpet covers the ground. A small lamp, hanging from the vaulted roof, feebly 
illuminates this lugubrious place. Green flags, ostrich-eggs, mirrors, wax candles of 
all colors, complete the decoration of the funereal chapel. In the further compartment 
stands the tomb of Sidi Bou-Médina, covered with drapery of red damask. 

The dervish Bou-Médina, after having lived at Mecca and at Bougia, was car- 
ried away violently from the latter city by the Sultan of Morocco, Yacoub-Almanzor, 
who took offence at the powerful influence exerted by the saint. Arrived with his 
escort at the banks of the river Isser, he fell ill and died in the year 1198; his 
body, transported to_ the village which now bears his name, was interred there with 
great ceremony. ‘The miracles which are attributed to this holy personage are in- 
numerable. 

The old guardian who did the honors of the mosque is usually to be seen seated 
in the doorway of the outer court. He thus passes his days motionless, save that 
he slips through his fingers the beads of his rosary; and at sight of him one re- 
calls that sentence from the Arabian Nights: “He who enters into the shadow of 
night and death renders his pain brief, for good fortune comes not with running to 
and fro.” The worthy man, however, emerged, for our sakes, from his wonted habits. 
He offered us cakes and honey. We drank water from the sacred well, and slipped 
a douro into the old man’s hand, and at our departure he accompanied us into the 
street with many benedictions. 

The door of the mosque (see page 43), is worthy of attention. Two fluted 


columns with Corinthian capitals support the pilasters, and under the projecting roof, 


EFS 
ES 
"Lge 
LEED 


Bz 


SEB 


SEE 
Zz 


wo 
Sa 
i 


= 


EE 


SS 


DOOR OF THE MOSQUE OF BOU-MEDINA. 


44 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


which shields the doorway, wooden caissons, deeply and finely carved, are set in with 
very happy effect. 

Meantime the desert allures us. Day by day we look southward, and imagina- 
tion pictures the Sahara. But the journey is difficult and expensive. Prudence bids 
us be content with Algeria, and with Tunis and Tripoli. On a sudden there comes 
news that an expedition is to start in a few days from Geryville, the last French 
outpost towards the desert, and make a fifteen days’ journey into the very heart of 
the Sahara, as far as Ouargla, “the Sultan’s Oasis.” Safety and reasonable economy 
thus secured, we throw all scruples to the winds, and the best speed of relays of 
Arab horses brings us to Geryvilie, in time to be duly accredited to the French 
officer in command, and obtain permission to join his party. 

Géryville itself is little more than the rude fort shown in the illustration. It 
was founded in 1852, by the French, as a tangible proof of their resolve to retain 
Algeria against all comers from the desert, and as such it has served its purpose well. 
The expedition to which we attached ourselves was under the direction of the French 
commandant at Géryville, accompanied by a staff of French and Arab officers, two 
mining engineers, and an historical painter. The regular troop consisted of thirty 
spahis of the Arab department, two orderlies, and a cook. The irregular troop 
was composed of a hundred horsemen, among them the suites of the Arab chiefs 
accompanying the party. Men and horses must be furnished with provisions for tha 
entire journey. Four camels were allowed each horseman, to carry the provisions and 
water necessary for himself and his horse, six skins of water being required for each 
horse and two for each man. Furthermore, a hundred camels were employed in the 
transportation of a reserve of water, cartridges, engineering instruments, palanquins 
destined for sick or wounded, medicine, and ropes. This reserve was placed under a 
speciai guard, and at the sole disposal of the commandant. A flock of sheep, and 
a troop of a hundred unladen camels, accompanied the reserve. The camel-drivers were 
about one to every three camels, and were provided with weapons. In all, our force 
consisted of a hundred and fifty horsemen, two hundred and eighty camel-drivers on 
foot, ten spare horses, and eight hundred and sixty camels. 

When all was ready, an inspection of each one’s provisions was made, and all 
deficiencies required to be at once supplied. Skins and casks were counted and tested. 
The convoy was organized in squads of camels, each one placed under the charge 
of a chief camel-driver, who was made responsible for all that was intrusted to him, 
a list of the same being made out. Lists also were made of the horsemen and their 
camel-drivers. The water-skins of the reserve were marked. The camels. of the 
entire column also received a general mark, to which was added for each a dis- 
tinctive one, Arab habits rendering this precaution indispensable. 


At daybreak the convoy set off, the horsemen following at eight o’clock. The 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 45 


first day’s journey brought us to Ain-Farch, a beautiful spring of water flowing at 
the foot of a rocky hillock thickly overgrown with trees. Our second — bivouac 
was outside the little fortified town of Bou-Alem. Our third day’s journey brought 
us to the foot of the Salt Mountain, and the entrance of the Kheneg-el-Mel’h, or 
Salt Defile. The hill gives its name to the river that flows at its base, and strongly 
impregnates the water with its own substance. From our tents we looked up to 
the steep declivities of the Salt Mountain: great bare white spaces alternated upon 
its side with rocky masses of a clear bluish-green, and others of delicate purple. 
These varieties in color gave the mountain a very singular aspect, the more remark- 


able since it overlooks a chain of hills of soft outline and dull coloring. Our young 


Fort of Géryville. 


painter admired, and our savans talked learnedly of the time when this saline up- 
heaval must have occurred. 

The following day we entered the defile, to emerge finally upon the great Sa- 
hara, for the chain which this defile traverses is the last series of hills separating 
the Dahara, or little desert, from the great desert, the Sahara itself. Kheneg-el- 
Mel’h is celebrated among the desert tribes. Besides being one of the few thorough- 
fares leading from the province of Oran into the desert, and consequently very much 
travelled, it is the place whither a crowd of tribes come to obtain their supplies of 
salt. At the entrance of the defile we are shown the ways on which General Pe- 
lissier’s guns were slid down steep places; further on, they point out hillocks bearing 
names of celebrated bandits who once haunted the place; at every step heaps of 
stones, surmounted by a few fluttering rags, indicate that here fell some human 


being under the assassin’s bullet; while legend adds supernatural terrors, making this 


46 ' VOYAGES AND TRAVELS: 


Pass the home of Djinns, or nocturnal spirits, some friendly, but others horribly cruel. 
All these associations form a lugubrious escort to the lonely traveller who traverses 
it by night, and makes the journey a thing to be dreaded. The length of the defile 
is about twelve miles: we keep along in the bed of the river, or just on its bank, 
amid clusters of tamarind-trees and rose laurels. From point to point the slender 
thread of water spreads out into great ponds, where ducks: and flocks of aquatic 
birds sail or rest quietly as we go by. 

When we reach the foot of the Salt Mountain, there is a perceptible smell of 
the sea. The mountain, rent and jagged on this side, rises almost perpendicularly 
above the water, displaying its crystalline and rainbow hues, which bring out in 
striking contrast the blue-green masses of the transversal strata and the great white 
ravines. As we go on, the dry bed of the river is covered with saline deposits, and 
the vegetation of the banks becomes marine. We seem to be drawing near the 
sea, while the horizon widens, and the great spaces of the desert appear in all their 
splendor. We come out upon the Sahara. | 

Six hours’ march brought us to Tadjerouna, a fortified town, upon an oasis with- 
out verdure or palm-trees, which is lodged in a shell-like depression in the midst of 
the plains. The wealth of this oasis consists in farms watered by freshets of the 
Oued-Mel’h. A dam upon this river gives opportunity, in the great rains, to lay 
the whole of ’adjerouna under water; the saturated earth is at once put under cul- 
tivation, and two months bring to maturity magnificent harvests. Besides this resource, 
the inhabitants of the oasis are the storekeepers of the Ouled-Yagoub, a powerful 
tribe with whom they are allied by interest and by blood. While the town pre- 
serves the grain of these nomads for a triflmg remuneration, the latter lead along to 
their scattered pasture-grounds the flocks of their allies with their own. 

On leaving Tadjerouna, we entered upon a march of a hundred and sixty miles, 
to be followed day by day, without obtaining any new supply of drinking-water 
till we should arrive at Metlili, the principal oasis lying between us and Ouargla. 
We left Tadjerouna at ten o’clock in the morning, under a sky whose horizon was 
filled with heavy and threatening clouds. At four in the afternoon, as we drew near 
our bivouac, the air was dull and the heat suffocating. The sky had grown black, 
and distant rumblings portended the coming storm. ‘The camel-drivers crowded their 
animals close to one another, to avoid their dispersal during the tempest. Just 
as the head of the column reached the camping-ground, a whirlwind of sand swept 
down the long line; it was the advanced guard of the storm. A reddish mass, 
like a great aérial wave, rushed towards us, throwing off sand in every direction. 
The camels were made to kneel in rows. The first gust passed like a flash of light. 
ning. ‘The men sheltered themselves behind their animals, covering their faces with 


a corner of their cloaks. The horses instinctively turned their backs to the wind. 


VARMA Gn 


‘i 


\ 


Wa 


il 


itt 


LI, 
F METLI 

O 

SIS 

OA 


48 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


A second later the whole fury of the whirlwind was apde us, and we were in com-_ 
plete darkness. The sand was so thick in the air, that one could not. see two paces’ 
distance. A clap of thunder, frightening some of the horses, added at this moment 
still further to the terrors of our position. 

The whirlwind lasted five long minutes; we remained motionless. At the end 
of that time a few big drops of rain began to fall through the sand, and in some 
degree dissipated the dry cloud which was stifling us. We shook off one layer of 
dust after another, and soon a heavy shower of rain and _ hail refreshed us, and 
cleared the atmosphere. The dripping horses found relief to their thirst, and 
settled willingly to browse the thick grass which grew in tufts around our camping- 
ground. 

The next day we followed the bed of the Oued-Maiguen, a river which never, 
even in heavy rains, is aught but a river of sand; and yet it is a boon to the 
traveller, even: such as it is, for not only is it a clear and easy road, but there 
are always plants growing on its banks, and trees enough to furnish wood for the 
bivouac. fire. 

On the morning of the third day we reached the river Metlili, and after an hour's 
march along the low ground, suddenly appeared before us, not half a mile away, 
the groves of palm-trees which mark the oasis. A hurrah of Joy welcomed the sight : 


all our fatigue was forgotten ; the 


people from the town and the gar- 


dens came out to meet us, and a 


scene of indescribable tumult and 


delight followed. Soon, however, 
order was restored. We had but 


just entered the forest of date-trees, 


and it was intended to encamp 


under the walls of the town. Ar- 


rangements were made to have the 


Bou-Alem. 


great reservolr's filled along the 
road, so that the camels could be watered and the casks replenished ; and then, 
after a leisurely repast, we resumed our march, which became a triumphal proces- 
sion. Groups of women and children, perched on garden walls, screamed to us 
with delight; the mounted portion of our party responded, bowing to the saddle- 
bow, and singing at the top of their voices; a troop of men ran beside us, now 
and then discharging fire-arms into the air;—and all this under an archway of palms, 
in the midst of peach and apricot trees, in an atmosphere of delicious perfume, and, 
best of all, in the shade, after so many long hours under a sunshine like molten 


lead. 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 49 


While our camp was set in order, we explored the town and its environs. Metlili 
is, at first, a strange contrast to one’s expectations. Its musical and dainty name 
had suggested visions of a white, well-kept, little city; but what we found was a 
crowd of houses, many of them in ruins, collected upon a hillock around a shabby 
mosque. Once habituated, however, to the poverty of the houses, we began to 
admire the position of the town. The hill which forms the oasis is situated at the 
point of intersection of four valleys. As far as the eye can see, these valleys are 
coyered with gardens, and from the minaret their soft luxuriance forms a charming 
picture. Two streamlets, which the rains call into life once or twice a year, meet 
just outside the town. ‘These brooks are the wealth of the oasis. The gardens are 
so laid out that, in freshets, all the waste water pours itself around the palm-trees. 
Stormy days are holidays in Metlilii The coming of the water is announced by 
mounted messengers; every one hastens to see the influx of the welcome flood. A 
storm means a fortnight’s rest and an assured harvest. Unluckily, storms are rare, 
and when heaven does not take charge of the irrigation, man must attend to it. 
The watering of the gardens in Metlili is a very arduous and almost continuous 
labor. The system employed deserves description; an idea can thus be given of the 
daily tasks of the population of the oasis, and of the importance necessarily attached 
to the few and rare rains they enjoy. ‘There is at Metlili only an underground 
body of water, lying at a depth which varies from forty-five to sixty feet. Every 
garden has its well and reservoir. The palms must be watered at least every second 
or third day, and it is the same with the fruit-trees. As for grain and vegetables, 
they are cultivated in beds and watered twice a day. To keep the reservoirs full 
requires almost constant industry. Night and day one hears the creaking pulleys of 
the wells; men and women, children, beasts of burden, are all employed in drawing 
water, and relays are arranged to avoid a moment’s cessation. The apparatus em- 
ployed is of primitive simplicity, but very well suited to its purpose, being only a. great 
skin, at one end wide-mouthed, at the other having a long narrow neck, and used _ like 
a siphon. It is raised and lowered by ropes passing over pulleys, and the drawers of 
water, harnessed to these ropes, walk down an inclined plane, thus raising the filled 
skins tc the top of the well. , 

By this wearisome proceeditig the whole territory of the oasis is watered, and the 
labor is incessant. In spite of these difficulties, not an inch of ground is wasted. Not 
to lose from the productive soil even the little space required by the dead for their last 
resting-place, interments at Metlili are invariably outside the oasis, upon the steep slopes 
of the surrounding hills, where tombs of solid masonry are constructed in regular rows 
curiously suggestive of the terraced vineyards of Southern Europe. 

Three days we spent at Metlili, and then, forth once more into the desert! One 


might say much of the strange variety and strange monotony of the three days that 


50 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


followed; but a desert journey is an experience that no pen can describe, and we shall 
do better to leave it to each reader’s imagination. 

About two o’clock in the afternoon of the fourth day we came out into the low 
ground where lies Ouargla. An immense forest of palm-trees stretched away into the 
distance, and on the edge of this forest, as we came near, we discovered quite a little 
army of soldiers, with flags and music, drawn up to receive us. A lively fusillade was 
our welcome, responded to, on the part of the approaching column, by the wildest 
extravagance of every kind. 

On entering the city we made our way to the mosque, where an improvised diffa 
was immediately offered us. While preparations for this repast were going forward, 
we scaled the highest minaret to get a look at the town. This ascent was not an easy 
matter to one unused to such exploits. The tower of the minaret is a pyramid of 
sun-baked brick; the stairs which lead up to its summit are composed of rough trunks 
of palm-trees, wedged between the outside wall and a central brick pillar, the steps 
being something like two feet high. The space which this spiral staircase occupies is 
not over eighteen inches in width; one must stoop to avoid striking against the 
stairs above one, and this in almost total darkness. Reaching the summit, we came 
out upon the platform which surrounds an ornament formed by the top of the central 
pillar; this platform is about ten inches wide between the railing and the pillar. 
The whole breadth of the top of the tower is not more than five feet, and on this 
platform eight of us were perched to examine the city. We were eighty feet from 
the ground, and as the minaret oscillated slightly in the wind, it must be owned a 
feeling of insecurity came over us. However, by way of compensation, the view was 
superb. From our elevated position we overlooked all the palm-trees, and the city 
spread out beneath us its vast circular extent, in which we could plainly distinguish 
the three distinct quarters which compose it. Hach of these quarters is a town within 
a town, separated from the others by walls and gates. In former times, gunpowder 
often spoke from one to another, and the sultan was powerless to bring back order. 
The palace of the nominal sovereign, situated on a little eminence, was externally only a 
strongly fortified citadel, from which he rarely dared emerge. Within, however, the 
place was comfortable enough, having all that a sultan of Ouargla could reasonably 
demand. Now, alas! there is nothing left of it but ruins: one small minaret standing; 
a few rooms that serve as shelter to some destitute creatures, and inscriptions here and 
there upon walls whose plaster has not yet fallen off. From the top of the minaret 
the general aspect of Ouargla is that of a bombarded and dismantled town. 

After partaking slightly of the entertainment that had been prepared for us, con- 
sisting of milk, dates, and date-wine, we visited in succession the different parts of the 
town. ‘The streets are narrow, and at many points it would be impossible for a horse- 


man to turn. Scarcely any but one-story houses are to be seen, and they are invariably 


OUARGLA. 


Milk is = a i 


ae 


ih 


52 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


made of sun-dried brick. House-doors are in many cases adorned with rude plaster 
ornaments, and with inscriptions from the Koran. . 

Ouargla is far from being a salubrious abode; strangers are liable to severe attacks 
of fever: the inhabitants themselves suffer every year from this malady, but not in a 
form so violent. It is believed that much of this ill health is caused by the quality of 
the water, which is nearly destitute of air. Here, as in most of the oases of the 
Sahara, the stranger is advised not to drink water until it has stood over night, and 
grown cool. ‘This seeming paradox is explained when we understand that the artesian 
wells. of Ouargla are all of tepid water, so that, standing a while, it does grow slightly 
cooler, besides becoming aérated, which is really the more important point. 

All the way along the low ground of the oasis there exists water at two distinct 
depths: a few feet under ground there is stagnant, saltish water, of little use, even for 
irrigation; but at the depth of a hundred and thirty or forty feet, wherever the inhab- 
itants choose to dig, an inexhaustible spring repays their industry. There are in the 
oasis nearly four hundred of these artesian wells; some of them, however, are choked 
by sand, and from time to time the dangerous and difficult task is ventured upon of 
clearing them out,—a work undertaken by men especially trained to it, who sacrifice 
their health and sometimes their lives in the endeavor. 

The population of Ouargla is of varied origin. Four distinct races can be observed: 
Arabs, Mozabites, Aratins, and negroes. The Arab is the same here as elsewhere, idle 
and poor, a true Ishmael of the desert. The Mozabites are refugees from M’zab, — 
rich, intriguing, and heretical. The Aratins are the primitive people of the oasis, a 
very.. peculiar race, —black, but of a bluish-black not existing among the tribes of 
Soudan. The negroes are importations from Central Africa; they are slaves, but 
extremely content with their position, and indisposed to accept opportunities for 
freedom. 

The inhabitants of the oasis all live by agriculture. If they are rich, they superin- 
tend the labors of their negro or Aratin farmers; if poor, they work themselves. <A 
few: of the Mozabites have dealings with caravans, buying and selling woollens, cereals, 
dates, spices, and cotton. ‘The men alone are employed in the gardens and farms, 
while. domestic labors and weaving of cotton and woollen fabrics are the share of the 
women. The carayans which come to buy dates have but little ready money, and pay 
in wool and in cereals; this wool the women then weave and make up into gar- 
ments, not alone for home use, but also in turn to sell to the caravans for foreign 
export. The Mozabites are skilful tanners too, and from sheepskins bought of their 
nomad neighbors they make extremely durable sandals, saddles, cartridge-boxes, Arab 
boots, and shoes. 

All industries, however, are made subservient to the great necessity of the siesta. 


During the larger portion of the day, absolute quiet broods over the town. Every 


SCENES [N MANY LANDS. 53 


corner has its stone bench and its recumbent sleeper ; the women sleep within their 
houses, all doors and windows being tightly closed against the heat. Towards 
sunset the population revives, and the evening is gay with rude music and dancing. 
Festivities are prolonged far into the night; finally, everybody goes to sleep in the 
open air, the rich upon their terraces, the negroes and Aratins on the sand in the 
garden walks, ready to resume work at a minute’s notice. This notice is given by 
the muezzin’s call to morning prayer. 

The people of Ouargla are of friendly disposition towards one another and towards 
strangers; they are hospitable, honest, and very devout, at least in external observances, 


but, withal, idle and pleasure-loving. 


Café at El Mersa. 


One cannot be insensible to the strange charm of a life in this city of the 
desert. How easy it would be to linger “in this hollow lotos-land,” and dream away 
one’s existence in a repose so absolute! Fortunately for us, a stronger will gave 
the signal for departure. Again, the desert journey, with its alternations of march 
and rest, of sandy wilderness and the very luxury of verdure; again, Algerian cities 


and highways ; finally, one bright morning late in May found us at the sea-shore, 


54 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


awaiting the steamer from Marseilles, which touches at three or four Algerian ports, 
on its way to Tunis, our next point of destination. ; 

The voyage was monotonous; but as we drew near land, our interest revived at 
sight of many characteristic little pictures of Mediterranean coast-life. The old sea- 
port of Carthage, El-Mersa, gleams white from under its trees. Here there is a 
palace, the ordinary residence of the Bey, and in its gardens the great ‘scarlet gera- 
niums grow tall as shrubbery. Also, many cafés, with picturesque striped awnings, 
whither the Tunisians repair to enjoy the sea-breeze. 

Landing at Goletta, the seaport of Tunis, we were transferred to the railway, 
of English construction, which connects the port with the city, and were soon flying 
along the submerged shore of the Lake of Tunis, an inland basin of salt water, 
whose surface reflected a sky of gold and azure. No painter could desire a more 
beautiful scene than this approach to the city. The white walls of Tunis, flooded 
with sunlight, stood out clear cut against the cobalt blue of the mountains of the 
background. These white tints were soft as satin; here and there the mountains had 
shadings of rose and light blue; upon the lake were swimming flocks of beautiful 
birds, — grebes, sea-gulls, cormorants, and pink flamingoes. 

A thousand memories wakened in one’s mind. Here once rode at anchor Pheni- 
cian fleets and Roman galleys. The great shades of Regulus and Scipio, Hamilear, 
Hanno, Julius Cesar, and Cato, seemed to possess the land, and fill with poetry all 
that unknown shore. Nor were more modern souvenirs lacking. Here died St. Louis, 
and here St. Vincent de Paul lived as a slave. 

In the railway station of Tunis the realities of the moment seize upon us with 
irresistible force in the persons of Arab and negro porters, who crowd and vocifer- 
ate, and snatch from our hands even the most trifling articles of luggage, in the 
hope of gaining a few karoubles. Our first view of the city shows an Oriental 
aspect in everything, even superior to that seen in Algeria. In spite of railway, and 
telegraph, and lighting by gas, in spite of the Frankish quarter with its European 
houses, its Sicilian and Maltese residents, one finds perpetual novelty in these narrow 
lanes, crowded with donkeys and camels, these covered market-places, where the Arab, 
Berber, Negro, and Jewish population strive incessantly to overreach and browbeat 
one another. ‘The business activity of some of these markets — for example, _ the 
bazaar of perfumes, of woollens, of Morocco leather —is much greater than that in 
any city of the Barbary coast. The Israelitish element, amounting to about thirty 
thousand, has no doubt largely contributed to this state of things. 

The city is believed to contain ninety thousand inhabitants, of whom ten thou- 
sand are Christians, chiefly Maltese and Italians. As might be supposed, both praise 
and reproach have been lavished with unsparing hand upon this African metropolis. 
Diodorus Siculus calls it “Tunis the White.” The Arabs have surnamed it “the 


i ; | 
= } ; 


sill? 
us 


| in 


4 


4s 


BAZAAR IN TUNIS. 


56 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


proud,” “the true,” “the flourishing,” “the industrious,” “the well-guarded,” and, lastly, 
“the abode of felicity.” On the other hand, Dr. Louis Franck, court-physician to the 
Bey, proposes to substitute for all these epithets that of “the ill-smelling.” 

It cannot be denied that one’s first impression in entering the city must be 
somewhat unfavorable; and still, if one is not discouraged, and ventures far enough, 
above all, if one knows how to see, he is sure to find a thousand compensations. 
Sometimes, passing down a narrow lane of one-story houses,—a lane so narrow that 


you may see people now and then leap across above your head, from one flat roof to 


another, — you come out suddenly before a café, nestled under the shade of superb - 


fig-trees; or into a little square, where are tents and roofs of plank resting on elegant 
Moorish columns, and giving shelter to picturesque groups of women and children; 
or upon some fine old gateway, in the angle of which flourishes a stately palm. 

At times you would think yourself in a miserable village; but a few steps fur- 
ther, a dome, a minaret, a Roman or a Saracen ruin, or a noisy market, a bazaar 
crowded with buyers, reminds you that you are in a great city. The sun whitens, 
gilds, illumines every scene,—this African sun, real enchanter that he is. Hvyery ray 
is a magic wand, making the most common detail precious; he appears, and white- 
wash becomes marble; a shabby striped woollen cloak takes the softest color and the 
richest effect. The intense blue of the sky, which makes so fine a background for 
everything, aids much in creating all this picturesque beauty. 

A traveller of the last century has counted in Tunis no less than three hun- 
dred and fifty mosques. It is difficult to say, without emulating his industry, whether 
the number has increased or diminished; but on every side the eye is attracted by 
these elegant structures, and constantly surprised by the variety of their forms. Some 
are really very remarkable, and it is to be regretted that it is absolutely forbidden 
all Europeans, even the consul-general, to enter them. Their green cupolas, which 
elsewhere might seem in bad taste, in Tunis contrast well with the general white and 
_ blue of the picture; and certain extravagances of marqueterie, on the sides of mina- 
rets and surrounding arched gateways, which would be extremely “loud” in Hurope, 
here find their appropriate place and successfully challenge one’s admiration. 

It is an endless amusement to walk through the bazaars. How many subjects 
for genre pictures they offer! In the one where essences and perfumes are sold 
you are almost intoxicated with the scent of roses. These bazaars are not fine struc- 
tures in any sense; they are only covered passages succeeding one another, and at 
certain places decorated with columns and porticos. At regular times there are sales 
by auction. Then the tradesmen, who are usually seated so indolently, take the 
trouble to mingle with the crowd, holding up their wares and screaming their prices. 
One may fancy the tumult and disorder this occasions. Some mean little passage- 


ways are resplendent with precious things, — saddles of velyet or morocco wrought 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 57 


with gold and silver, mother-of-pearl, caskets, fabrics of marvellous richness, and 
superb weapons. You soon notice that each trade has its own quarter. One of the 
most amusing is that of the tailors, hung round with pink, and green, and yellow 
stuffs. The most abundant product is the fez, or tarbouch, which we see all the 
world over. The Tunisians excel in the making of this little red cap, which they 
export by millions to all lands where Mahomet is prophet. Their embroidered silk 
slippers are also famous, and a certain fringed burnous of superior quality. 

At Tunis, during the summer, the heat is intense. At that time, all the inhab- 
itants who are in wealthy, or even comfortable, circumstances, withdraw to the country, 
where they find some degree of coolness in their immense gardens, under clumps of 
jasmine and orange-trees. No description can give an idea of the profound tran- 
quillity of these delicious spots; one may pass whole hours there without hearing 
a sound, a murmur, save now and then a flutter of wings overhead, or two or three 
liquid bird-notes. 

At Bardo, just out of the city on the north-west, is the official seat of gov- 


Court of Lions at Bardo. 


ernment, an extensive chateau, flanked with towers and bastions. One of the most 
striking architectural features of this building is the Court of Lions, so called from 
its staircase, guarded by eight enormous lions, each in a different attitude. 

In the same direction, some miles further from Tunis, we come to the most im- 
portant river of the country, the Medjerdab (the Bagradas of antiquity). Near 
this river, according to legend, Regulus destroyed a monstrous serpent. Is this a 
fable? Who can tell? We learn from day to day our ignorance, and how it 
becomes us to be circumspect in pronouncing upon either the truth or falsehood of 


ancient story. 


58 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


The banks of the Medjerdab are very picturesque. Our illustration on the left 


TTT i i re shows the remains of a Roman bridge. 
Hdl | i|| | Hi) 
i HHT | Hi aN ; 


All along the river is a great luxuriance 


PANNEMKE RR 


of vegetation. Date-trees and bananas 


overhang the water, and the Barbary 


et Bae 
_— 


fig, and the rose-laurel with its carmine- 


colored umbels, complete the decoration. 


Further up the river are islands covered 


with tamarind-trees. 


We may say without exaggeration, no 


soil is richer and more liberal than that of 


Tunis. To-day, corn and oil are its chief 


products ; but how far it is from being 


cultivated as it ought to be! The great- 


est obstacle lies in the ignorance and. 


superstition of the people. The later 


Beys of Tunis have seemed to under- 


stand what was needed for the regener- 


ation of their country, but they are so far 


in advance of the general intelligence 


of their subjects that many years must 


pass before any material advance can be 


Banks of the Medjerdab. 


made. 


A great effort of modern  civiliza- 


tion is shown, however, in the aqueduct 


which supphes the city with water. The 
springs are situated in the mountains of 
Zaghouan, three days’ journey to the 


south of Tunis. The work is due to 


French engineers, who have followed the 


direction of the ancient aqueduct of Car- 


thage, in many cases utilizing the re- 


mains of that gigantic construction. { 


Having gratified our curiosity with ; 


respect to Tunis, we struck off south- 


ward, with the intention of visiting the 


hs ieee ee a ii) WY many important Roman ruins to be found j 


near the eastern coast, and finally, making _ 


ee i2 See NUMAN * a short sea-voyage from one of the most | 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. | 59 


southern ports to Tripoli, across the Gulf of Gabes, the Syrtis Minor of the 
ancients. 

We came first to the remains of the great aqueduct, which we present below. 
The date of this magnificent work, one of the most imposing executed by the Ro- 
mans in Africa, can only be fixed approximately ; but it seems to have been com- 
-menced under Adrian, and finished in the reign of Septimius Severus. We know 
that in the time of Adrian the Roman province of Africa had suffered cruelly for 
five years with a frightful drought, and that the emperor, to console the province, 
came in person to yisit Carthage. By a happy chance, rain shortly followed his arrival, 
and the country speedily recovered prosperity. As Spartinus, Adrian’s biographer, 
tells us that this prince constructed many aqueducts in various portions of the 


empire, it is reasonable to believe that, to secure Carthage against a repetition of the 


Remains of Roman Aqueduct. 


suffering caused by the drought, he resolved to endow this city with an unfailing 
supply of water from the Zaghouan mountains. Certain medals, struck at Carthage in 
the time of Septimius Severus, bearing that emperor’s effigy, and on the reverse Astarte, 
the local divinity, seated on a lion which is running beside a brook, give ground 
for the belief that in his reign the work was completed. 

A few miles further brought us to the springs themselves, in the midst of a 
wild and beautiful landscape. Directly over the principal spring was built a temple 
whose ruins, even at this day, command our veneration. It is believed throughout 
the country to have been a fortress, but a little examination shows it to have been 
built with a religious object. It is in the form of a horse-shoe, resting against the 
mountain side: at the back is an altar, with twelve niches on either side, now, alas! 


destitute of the statues which once adorned them, The central space is a great open 


60 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


area, more than ninety feet long and nearly as wide; this area is about seven feet 
above the basin of solid masonry which was built for the spring. Steps lead down 
below the water and up to the level of the terrace. A subterranean canal conducts 
into this reservoir, through four apertures, the water of an inexhaustible spring which 
leaps from the mountain side, and is then conducted to the great aqueduct, supply- 
ing the distant city of Tunis, as once it did the more famous Carthage. 

All this forms a structure complex and harmonious, shaped like an amphitheatre, 
the elegance and originality of which is singularly enhanced by the site it occupies. 
Behind the temple rises the giant mass of the Zaghouan, with its escarped sides, 
its deep ravines, and imposing chaos of huge blocks of stone heaped confusedly one 
upon another. In front of it, on the contrary, and below the level of the area, the 
eye rests with delight upon the gay verdure and endless bloom of the adjacent gar- 
dens. Add to this the utmost silence of solitude, the consecration time imprints upon 
every great ruin, and the mystery which broods over the origin and story of this 
temple erected to divinities forever unknown, and one has an idea of the effect it 
produces on the traveller seeing it for the first time. 


Nearly a hundred miles south of the mountains of Zaghouan lies the Arab 


village of El-Djem, and here is the chief wonder of all the Roman ruins, the Am-. 


phitheatre of Thysdrus. This building is comparable only with the Roman Colos- 
seum and the Amphitheatre of Verona, and its effect is the more striking since it 
rises solitary in the midst of a desert, overwhelming with its mass the mole-hills of 
the Arab population which are huddled about its base. 

Making our way through a thick hedge of cactus, we discover by degrees the 
colossus in all its grand proportions, and can admire the harmony of its ensemble 
and the finish of its details. The western side is nearly in ruins, but on the east, 
the building stands almost intact and to its full height. There are three stories of 
superposed arches, and between the arches columns half free from the wall, while 
around the top of the building an entablature, now partially destroyed, formed a fourth 
story. 

The style, without being absolutely pure, approaches the Corinthian, but it is the 
same throughout the whole edifice, and not—as in the Flavian amphitheatre and in 
so many other structures of this kind — differing in the different stories. Also — and 
this is an exceptional good fortune — all that remains here is purely Roman; one con- 
gratulates himself that there are no repairs and coarse restorations, accompanied by 
inscriptions in praise of the architect who committed, and the sovereign who author- 
ized them. Not one of those shocking interpolations which so often offend the eye 
even in Rome, mars the symmetry of Thysdrus. 

The longer axis of the edifice is five hundred feet; the shorter, four hundred 


and ten ; the corresponding dimensions in the Amphitheatre of Verona are five hundred 


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62 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


and thirteen, and four hundred and ten feet. The arena is three hundred and fourteen 
feet long and twenty wide; the height of each story about thirty-three feet, and of 
the whole about a hundred and sixteen. 

Of the sixty-four arches, nearly a third, on the west side, are broken down. 
The eastern side is entire, and of the most imposing effect. The Arabs have built 
their stone hovels against it, or have dug out entrances to the vaults underneath, 
and established themselves there. In one of these cellars, where the principal café 
of El-Djem is situated, the Arabs sit all day long, smoking tobacco or hasheesh, 
and drinking coffee. 

Entering this great edifice, one is overwhelmed with the devastation which reigns 
within. The arched corridors are in part preserved, and from them one can _ best 
judge of the magnitude of the building. Although the stairs and seats are almost 
all in ruins, it is easy to see what was the internal arrangement. A few of the upper 
seats are yet intact, also one of the doors on the southern side. The level of the 
arena has been raised by fragments of the walls which have fallen in upon it. The 
orchids and saxifrages of Rome are not here, but their place is filled by fields of 


wild flowers and grasses, upon which feed the flocks of El-Djem. Beneath are dens 


destined for wild beasts, and reservoirs of water for the spectacles representing - 


sea-fights. 

We were shown a hole, now partly filled by debris, which, according to Arab 
tradition, is the entrance to a subterranean passage excavated by the Berber queen 
Kahina, and leading out to the sea-shore near Sfakés. For, like the Roman Colos- 
seum and the Theatre of Marcellus, the Amphitheatre of Hl-Djem has served many 
times as a fortress. Its most brilliant epoch as a citadel seems to have been the time 
of the second Arab invasion, about the year 689. At that time the Berber tribes, 
stimulated by the voice of a native Joan of Arc, the Kahina of whom we have just 
spoken, offered a gallant resistance to the invaders. Defeated by Hassan-ben-No’man, 
Kahina shut herself up here, as in a stronghold. How long she was able to defend 
it does not seem to be clearly known; but she appears to have prolonged her 
resistance three or four years, and finally to have been carried off safely by one of 
her own people. The name of this heroine is very much honored in Arab tradition, 


and for a long time the Amphitheatre of El-Djem was known as Kahina’s Citadel. 


About the year 1700, some tribes in revolt made a stand here, and the Bey ~ 


was obliged to batter down the walls with cannon before he could reduce the rebels. 
Besides this, he caused three arches to be demolished, so that the edifice could 
never again serve as a stronghold. From this time its destruction has gone on 
rapidly, and at different intervals the colossus has served as a manufactory of salt- 
petre, and as a quarry of hewn stones. 


What is the origin of this edifice, and why was it constructed’ here? A French 


ai 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 63 


traveller, in 1743, does not hesitate to attribute it to the Emperor Gordian I., whe 
was proclaimed Cesar by his troops at Thysdrus. But this date must seem uncertain 
when we consider that this emperor wore the purple but six weeks, and during thai 
time was occupied incessantly in civil war. Nothing in the architecture leads to any 
definite conclusion ; in all probability the edifice was reared in the early part of the 
third century, but no greater exactitude of date can now be attained. 

The ruins of the Roman city of Thysdrus, situated in the neighborhood, are 
dwarfed completely by the amphitheatre. At the same time, it evidently was a town 


of importance, and we find its name, with slight modifications, in all the ancient geog- 


| 


Mt 


| 


Ruins of the Amphitheatre of El-Djem. 


raphies. Hcclesiastical history has preserved the names of several of its bishops; in 
417, a council was held here. As for the identity of El-Djem with the Roman 
Thysdrus, an inscription found near by, and deposited at present in the little chapel 
of St. Louis at Carthage, makes this clear beyond all doubt. The Arab village, 
built against the amphitheatre, and comprising a population of two thousand souls, 
is In no way remarkable. The people are friendly towards strangers, and take pride 
in exhibiting their magnificent ruin. | 


Leaving El-Djem, we made our way southward to Sfakés, encamping for a night 


04 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


on the road, and had the good fortune to witness a Tunisian razzia, an extremely 
characteristic example of the manners of this wild people. It was nearly dusk, and 
we had just crossed the dry bed of a brook, when we suddenly noticed clouds of 
dust appearing on the horizon. Our guide ordered the caravan to stop, and himself 


dashed forward at the top of his speed to reconnoitre. In a few moments we had 


an explanation. The torrent whose bed we had just crossed comes down a moun- 


tain pass, and is a favorite road by which the Hammemas, a warlike and powerful 
tribe living among the hills, descend to plunder the peaceful residents of the low- 
land. Our inoffensive band had been taken for an enemy by the shepherds, and 
they had raised these clouds of dust as a signal of alarm. This was instantly com- 
prehended by the Beni-Amram, resident in the nearer hills, and scarcely had we time 
to understand the situation before these bold warriors, the best shots in Tunis, rushed 
down upon us, to bring succor to their allies. Happily we were able to convince them 
of their mistake, and the gallant horsemen swept back again to their hills. Meanwhile 
we kept on our way, and soon came up with the shepherds, the cause of this tumult. 
They had hidden their cloaks in the sand, and were sheltered behind a band of war- 
riors of the Aiaicha, a tribe also friendly to them. As we approached, the troop of 
horsemen broke into a gallop and advanced upon us. When they were close to us, they 
discharged their fire-arms into the air in token of friendship, and welcomed us with 
loud cries and shouts. We had never before seen such beautiful Arab horses, man- 
aged by so skilful riders. Our guide was known to all; and everybody, to boys of 
eight and ten years old, had turned out for our reception. But their weapons were 
an amazing collection, — ancient flint-locks, old blunderbusses, pistols of an earlier age, 
a hundred times more dangerous for him who used them or his neighbor, than for 
those against whom they were aimed. All this artillery had been reloaded, and was 
about to be employed in a second jew de joie, when a fierce dispute broke out among 
the three chiefs in respect to our encampment, each wishing us to be near his own 
party. ‘l'o appease this quarrel, we planted our tent exactly between the three groups; 
all were thus satisfied, and gave themselves up to an admiring examination of our 
revolvers. 

To a person familiar with Arab manners, the alarm we had caused was very 
natural. It is an every-day occurrence among rival tribes to fit out expeditions 
against each other’s shepherd allies. The band will consist of anywhere from five 
to a hundred and fifty horsemen, and they will often ride between one and two hun- 


dred miles in pursuit of their prey. Then creeping near the encampment, one party 


will dash in and drive away all the sheep and camels they can surround, and start 


for home, while the others serve as a rear-guard to protect them from attack. Sur- 


prise and rapidity are the elements in this primitive strategy, and it is easy to see 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 65 


why the Bedouins value their horses as they do, since it is upon the strength and 
speed of his horse that the rider’s success depends in raids like these. 

As a matter of course, the person plundered immediately takes measures for the 
recovery of his stolen property. He unites his neighbors and allies, and sometimes 
the rencontre takes place sixty miles away from the original scene of the raid. If, 
in spite of all their diligence and courage, the lost flocks are not recovered, the affair 
becomes a grievance carefully inscribed in memory, and revenged whenever an oppor- 
tunity offers. Thus an interminable series of razzias is kept up, with varying for- 
tunes but unfailing zeal. 

The next day we reached Sfakés, the most important town in southern Tunis. 
A yast belt of gardens forms the suburbs of this city. For hedges the Mexican 
cactus is employed, a plant now perfectly well naturalized in Barbary, and the gardens 
are filled with superb olives and pomegranate trees, and roses and jasmines culti- 
vated for the distillation of perfumes. A few palms, scattered in the town and 
its environs, give a suggestion of some oasis of the desert astray on the shores of 
the Mediterranean. Sfakés is in fact an island of verdure, surrounded on all sides 
either by the desert or by the sea. But dates cannot ripen there, for the neigh- 
borhood of the Gulf of Gabes renders rains more frequent and the soil less 
fruitful. 

Sfakés, a town of forty thousand inhabitants, is quite a commercial centre. Its 
trade is carried on, chiefly by sailing-vessels, with Malta and Italy, and deals in 
dates, rugs, olive-oil, sponges, and its own essences of roses and jasmines. The 
price of these essences is considerable, even at first hand, being for the best quality 
not less than twenty-three or twenty-four dollars an ounce. 

In the harbor of Sfakés there are always many vessels; and, making choice of 
what seemed the best of the traders bound for Tripoli, we embarked for that port. 
The wind was light but favorable, and the voyage so agreeable that it was almost 
with regret that we distinguished the Tripolitan coast, low and monotonous, describ- 
ing a crescent whose centre is occupied by the white mass of the city. The 
eastern point of this crescent is completely covered with a sombre ‘forest of palm- 
trees advancing into the sea, while on the west, the arid, barren shore puts on the 
tawny yellow of the desert, spotted here and there with some clumps of stunted 
shrubs. , 

In front of the recess which serves as a harbor for the city, the Creator’s hand 
has flung down a string of shoals, like an invitation to human industry to construct 
a protecting breakwater, and secure, with but little labor, one of the best harbors 
in the world. When the wind blows in shore, these natural advances are revealed 
in a long milk-white ribbon, tracing the position of the shoals; but the temptation 


is offered in vain. There is but a fragment of a mole, founded upon some Roman 


66 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS.” 


work, which runs out a few hundred feet to the first rocks of the series. This poor 
little work, however, is extremely proud of its importance, and shows in its crumbling 
embrasures the mouths of many cannon. We must not scorn them too much as 
we see them to-day, lying mute upon their massive carriages, which are sedulously 
painted black to conceal their decayed condition. | Worm-eaten and splintered, these 
supports, which could not endure the shock of a single discharge, make a great 
show, and deceive the eye,—a faithful symbol of the Ottoman Empire, regenerated 
by the whitewash of Huropean civilization. 7 

It must be owned that a large part of the poetry of the Hast is due to our 
imagination. Constantinople, Smyrna, Jerusalem, Alexandria, all the great Oriental 
cities, sadly disenchant the visitor. The same is true of Tripoli. You step upon 


the quay,— that is to say, a little landing-place of masonry, which serves as a kind 


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Tripoli. 


of court-yard to the shed of a custom-house, painted in stripes, green, yellow, blue, 
and red,—and the fine effect of the city seen from the distance is quite effaced. 
Entering the town, you find the streets filthy and irregular, and many of the build- 
ings mere hoyels in various stages of dilapidation. One single remnant of antiquity 
strikes the eye, the disfigured fragments of an arch of triumph, which dates from 
the later Roman time, | 

Most of the streets have something quite original about them, which we have 
seen nowhere else. Every few steps, houses facing each other are united by arches, 
three feet or so in thickness, to give support to both, and keep them in the per- 
pendicular position. Even this precaution does not prevent the downfall of many 


buildings every year,—a misfortune due perhaps to the bad quality of the mortar, 
or the nature of the stone, which is a very friable concrete. 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 67 


The part of the city nearest the harbor is the favorite quarter of the Christian 
population, who are grouped around the church and the consulates. The west end 
belongs to the Jews; and the Mussulman population occupy the rest of the town. 
The whole number of inhabitants within the walls amounts to about twenty thousand 
souls. 

The fortress occupies the south-east extremity of the city. It is a heavy, shape- 
less mass of buildings, whose high walls seek to pass for fortifications. But, not- 
withstanding their whitewash, it may be doubted whether a dozen bullets would not 
bring them to utter destruction. Within, it is but a labyrinth of narrow corridors 
and low, smoky rooms,—a very Castle of Udolpho, where one shudders to fancy 
himself lost. This is the magnificent residence where the governor-general is enthroned, 


—a Turkish pacha whose administration extends over a territory almost as large as 


Citadel of Tripoli. 


France. Much of this country is, however, a desert. From the very gates of the 
city extends back an arid, level plain, like the bed of an arm of the sea, left dry 
by the retreating tide. This surrounds the city on its inland side, a semicircular 
strip, about half a mile in breadth, serving as a parade-ground for the garrison, and 
as a market-place for the Tripolitans. The sea comes up over about a third of it, in 
winter, when the wind blows strongly. 

The exterior limit of this sandy zone is a long line of verdure, a thickly-grown 
forest of orange-trees, figs, and olives, bristling with an infinite number of tall palm- 
trees. With this begins another semicircular belt, called El-Menchieh, about nine 
miles in breadth, — properly speaking, the Tripolitan oasis, for beyond it lies the desert. 
This strip, through which are scattered numberless isolated dwellings, comprises a 
population of about thirty thousand inhabitants, and constitutes the life and strength 
of the province. Tripoli is but the citadel of Hl-Menchieh. 


68 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


It makes a singular contrast, this fertile region, lying between two plains of 


an emerald necklace around a tawny throat. Here a garden, where 


yellow sand, 
plants grow with marvellous energy, and the foliage of the lemon-tree doubles the 


shadow of the palm; and behind the walls the absolute desolation of the parched 
desert, dunes of fine, moving sand, swept into waves and curves by the wind. ‘Then, 
one is tempted to repeat, with the old philosopher, “ Water is life; ” for the presence 
or the absence of water is the key to the mystery. Ee 

To visit El-Menchieh is the chief amusement of the city, especially in the spring- 
time, and the programme of the entertainment is varied according to the social position 
of the visitor. If a Turk, or one of the native population attached to the govern- 
ment, his repast is roast mutton and pillaw ; an enormous dish of national couscousou, 
surmounted by quarters of lamb and fricasseed chicken, is offered to the well-to-do 
tradesman; the bazina, a kind of barley broth flavored with oil, is for the common 
people. But apart from this culinary distinction, and from a gradation in the fur- 
niture they bring with them,— the carpet for the aristocracy, mats for the third estate, 
the bare ground for the plebeian,—the country diversions are the same for all: they 
sit beside an artificial lake ; they talk and smoke, they smoke and talk, and absorb 
enormous quantities of laqgby. This laqgby,.a very intoxicating liquor made from the 
palm-tree, is the beginning and end of every entertainment in the Regency. 

From what we have said, it will easily be believed that we were soon satisfied 


with our stay in Tripoli, and it was with no regret that we saw its white walls 


sink beneath the horizon, as we skimmed away over “the blue Mediterranean,” bound. 


for Marseilles. 


ek = Ts 
“ane & 


Ae 


al 


BAY CE ON decay 


a 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. | 69 


iB HA 
ae 
Ly 


q 


mn 


rail 
i ial 


ele ae PING OT 5 5. 


——oe0-0-— 


IN virtue of a certain document bearing date “ Cairo, 


December 4, 1875,” written in English and in Arabic, viséed 


by the American consul and euaranteed by the Heyptian 
oO y oO 


authorities, we had become for the time absolute pro- 
prietors of a floating domicile, endowed with the very 
poetic name, “The Lotus.” Also we had engaged the 


services of eight stout Arab sailors, a revs or captain, a 


dragoman, a cawas, and a cook. ‘The choice of a drag- 


oman is usually a matter of much difficulty. “The drag- 
oman is of four species,” says Curtis: “the Maltese, or 
the able knave; the Greek, or the cunning knave; the 
Syrian, or the active knavye; and the Egyptian, or the 
stupid knave.” Ours was a Maltese: and, while he made 
good his national reputation for ability, his knavery, we 


finally decided, on comparing notes with other travellers, 


fell somewhat below the average. The cawas is a sol- 


dier gorgeously arrayed, carrying a very arsenal of wea- 


pons about his person; his duty is to defend his employer, 


and to enforce the order of government by which gratuitous service is obtained from 


70 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


the natives along the river-bank, whenever the wind fails or is unfavorable, and the — 
boat must be drawn by ropes. Our cook was an Arab, reported very skilful in ~ 


pastry and desserts, and we hoped, by timely suggestions, to direct his abilities into — 


results not altogether unsatisfactory to American palates. 

Our supplies were abundant and varied. Along the river are to be obtained 
only milk, rather poor butter, a few vegetables, eggs, pigeons, and fowls. Imagine all 
the other requisites for the table, and you form an idea of the list filled out in 
Cairo. i | 

The expedition thus organized, we set sail on the 5th of December, under a sky 
and in a temperature like that of our May. An absolutely cloudless heaven was — 
mirrored in the calm water of the Nile. At our left went past the suburbs of Cairo - 
Ramleh, crowded with boats; Boulak, with its animated harbor; the Palace of 
Karls-el-Nil, with courts surrounded by porticos, and quays beautified by superb syc-_ 
amores ; further on, the old residence of the Frenchman Soliman-Pacha, organizer of — 
the Egyptian army in the time of Mahomet Ali; and then, the great bazaar of Mas- — 
sara Adim. On the right, extensive meadows and fields, and the tufted thickets of 
the Island of Rhoda, make a graceful foreground for the great pyramids which cast 
their triangular shadows upon the sand of the Libyan Desert. 

Life upon the Nile begins radiantly. All the scenery near Cairo is full of an- — 
imation, and verdure, and luxuriance. Our crew sang at their work a monotonous ; 
refrain, with a persistently-recurring rhythm; our dragoman busied himself in naming 
and describing to us everything we saw, — and a good deal that we did not see. 
The cawas also, silent, and splendid in his gay attire and his arsenal of weapons, — 
came and sat down beside us on the upper deck, near the helmsman. It became ~ 
time for the crew’s dinner: each sailor has his ration of lentils; the revs sitting — 
beside us made his repast of dates. Much impressed with this abstemiousness, we 
sent cigars and coffee to the men, which were received with noisy gratitude. 3 

Our boat is quite spacious; in the stern on deck is a long, low house, contain- — 
ing six very good rooms; the saloon in the extreme end opens by many windows 
upon a little gallery, where we sit in the shade, smoking our chibouques, quite shel- 
tered from sight and sound of the crew. Upon the flat roof of this house is the 
captain’s cabin, a charming place to enjoy the evening breeze; and forward, near the 
“mainsail, the crew live and sleep in the open air. 

After sunset, night comes down very suddenly, full of silence and soft freshnaal i 
The stars are more brilliant than in our climate, and the great white moon swings 
up the sky like another sun. Darkness melts away into a soft half-light; the very 
air seems blue, and in the silvery distance the sky blends with the outlines of the 


hills and the great leafy tops of the palm-trees. The moon is an enchantress; it is 


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EGYPTIAN GARDEN AND TEMPLE. 


72 “VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


she, mysterious and beneficent divinity, whom India, Egypt, and Greece have rivalled 
one another in adoring. 

Our first night on board was of brief duration; the singing of the crew, as they 
resumed their work, awakened us before day; but we soon became habituated to 


the sound, and even found it soothing. No road in the world is like a river; one 


advances, yet absolutely without consciousness of moving. Beautiful white villages 


appeared in the distance, grew yellowish and dingy as they came nearer, then retired 
again, resuming their beauty and brilliancy with increasing distance. 

Head winds day after day delayed us; and while great boats, loaded with straw 
in bundles, slipped along down river with full sails, we were slowly “tracking” up- 
wards, under the bare escarpments of the Djebel-Mabagah. On the Libyan side the 
valley stretches away as far as the eye can see, often interrupted by villages and 
picturesque towns; some close by the river, others a mile or two away. Near Minieh 
is a stationary steam-engine for irrigation; further on are sugar refineries. 

Manfalout, a town which retains its ancient name, is incessantly devoured by the 
Nile at its feet. It shows to the traveller a ruinous mosque and a bazaar, of which 
half has fallen into the water. Arab indolence opposes a scornful inertia to the 
ageressive river: it is written that the Nile shall carry away this wall, this house, 
this field. Why resist? 

The city of Sioot, the third in importance in Egypt, presents more attractions 
than any of its neighbors. Its numerous minarets, its groups of white houses, stand 
out in high relief from a background of the Libyan mountain range. A delightful 
road in the shadow of mimosas, a park avenue, so to speak, leads from the river 
to a kind of gateway opening into a great court-yard surrounded by barracks: Here 
are the Arnauts and the governor’s troops. Then we cross a little arm of the Nile 
which is frequently dry, but in December the water is high and forms a pretty cas- 
eade. Across the little bridge at the right is the moudir’s palace, and no doubt his 
harem, for as we passed we. could hear merry voices and laughter, as in recess in 
a girls’ boarding-school. Great trees overhang the walls, and shelter from sight the 
buildings within the enclosure. A narrow steep street leads to the centre of the 
town. Local industries fill the great bazaars with a thousand characteristic products. 
Sioot is the capital of Upper Egypt or Said; its environs, a narrow strip between 
the mountain range and the river, are distinguished by their luxuriance of vegetation. 
The 20th of December seems to be winter by the almanac; but here in Sioot the 
fields were green and fiower-filled, and fragrant as in spring. A few leaves were 
falling from the mimosas, but the new corn was springing luxuriantly, and the orange- 
trees were all in bud. The narcissus looked up with its bright eye, from between the 
rocks on the river-banks, and clumps of violets made the air fragrant. The sugar- 


cane — which grows here to the height of eighteen or twenty feet — recently cut 


= 
tone 3 


tis 


EGYPTIAN VILLA. 


74. VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


down, was already sending out vigorous shoots. Tobacco, hemp, and flax, growing 
in patches, add variety to the graceful effect. Among the trees we recognize for 
the first time one, a special lover of the sun, the Dom palm. Instead of a single 
tall trunk, with a plumy top of long, pointed leaves, the Dém palm is always 
forked, the two main branches subdividing into many lesser ones, each of which 
bears a cluster of rather short leaves, and bends under the weight of a bunch of | 
reddish nuts. These nuts are as large as an orange, of irregular elongated shape, 
and have the appearance but not the taste of little cocoa-nuts. The thick, thready 
husk contains a soft and rather sugary fruit and a hard kernel. The Dom palm 
has two harvests in the year; the natives eat the fruit when it is fresh, and use it 
largely, when dry, as a medicine. 

Above Sioot, the Nile itself is an object of interest, at least as much so as are 
its banks. Its abrupt turns, the struggles it makes to escape from the mountains 
which hem it in, vary the aspect of its current at each moment. Now and then, 
herds of buffaloes come down to drink of its limpid waters, and plunge suddenly into — 
the river, disappearing from sight, except their black muzzles wreathed with aquatic 
plants. Frequently one sees whole squadrons of superb ducks, swimming across, and 
occasionally landing on some sandy island. Half wild, and without owner, they are 
very abundant near Farchout; we tried in vain to shoot some of them, but they were 
aware of human presence, and took refuge among the rocks. The people of the 


o, at the time when melons mnumera- 


country kill them in great numbers towards spring, 


ble, dropped by overloaded barks, float down the river, pecked at by the ducks all along. 
Then each man coifs himself with a hollow melon, pierced with holes for the mouth 
and eyes, and swimming in among the unconscious ducks, seizes two at once, one in 
each hand. ‘The poor birds never learn suspicion, and every day at the same hour, for 
a month, this sport goes on. The ducks are not the only inhabitants of the lagoons : 
hundreds of lizards bask there in the sun; from time to time a stork comes by, spears 
a reptile or two, and puts it in store in his large pouch. | 

But make ready for grander sights! ‘Thebes is near. First, Konek, the ancient 
Tentyris, where Cleopatra built the temple of Denderah ; then, Gamaunh, Hamamdi, and 
the rich fields and luxuriant groves of the Arabian side of the river. The Libyan 
mountain range rises in all its majesty. At its feet are Gournah, Medinet, the Colossi, 
the Memnonia; while across the river, Luxor and Karnak display their wondrous palace- 
temples, even yet filled with all the glory of Thothmes and Rhamses. Upon this soil, 
exhausted by the power it once nourished, man counts for little now. <A village at 
Luxor, a few hovels at Medinet, at Gournah some inhabited tombs, — this is all the 
life now existing by the great river where once gods and men, and the most stupen- 
dous efforts of human genius, had their home. And still, in this vast plain, which the 


mountains either side the river hem in as an enormous amphitheatre, the solitude is 


5 | 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 75 


peopled with visions innumerable; nations dead and gone leave a presence in the air, 
and thoughts still hover where the busy brain whence they sprang has long since ceased 
its labors. : 

The architectural history of Egypt divides itself into three periods. Of these the 
first is represented by the Pyramids, dating from the time of the Memphian kings, 
and believed to be the oldest structures existing. These remarkable tombs are too well 
known to require illustration here. The second period is the one which has bequeathed 
to the world the indestructible magnificence of the ruins of Karnak and Luxor and 


Medinet, and is referable to the dynasties reigning at Thebes. The third has left 


Si a 


aa 


Fees Exterior Wall. 

behind it the temples of Hermonthis and Kom-Ombos, Khartas and Phils, and repre- 
sents the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt. | 

In the accounts which the Egyptians themselves have transmitted to us, their early 
history and chronology are divided by reference to the dynasties of their kings, of 
which dynasties they number twenty-nine. Their great epochs are: the Fourth Dynasty, 
reigning at Memphis, the pyramid builders; the ‘Twelfth Dynasty, of which Osortasen 
was the great monarch; and the Eighteenth and Nineteenth, following the expulsion 
of: those invaders known as the Shepherd Kings. The early part of the Eighteenth 


Dynasty was rendered illustrious by the exploits of several kings known under the 


76 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


name of Thothmes. After their time followed a second invasion, by a people called 
 Sun-worshippers,” and believed to be kindred to the hated Shepherd Kings; and upon 
their expulsion, the original line was restored. Rhamses III., the first king of the Nine- 
teenth Dynasty, is clearly identified with the conqueror known to the Greeks as Sesos- 
tris. This and the previous dynasties are the great builders to whom Karnak and _ its 


neighboring temples are due; and from the conclusion of this brilliant epoch, Egypt 


mide sue mh 


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Karnak, Hypostyle Hall. 


began to decline until her misfortunes were consummated by the invasion of Cambyses, 
in 525 B. c. <A period followed of tyranny more destructive than that of the Shepherd 
Kings, at last relieved by the enlightened policy of the Ptolemies. Architecture and 
its kindred arts again revived, never with the splendor and purity of the great national 
epoch, but still with much richness and tasteful variety. 

In the days of the great builders, Egypt was but little known either to Jews or 
Greeks, the nations of antiquity from whom we should naturally expect information. 


a, 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. igi 


In the Jewish Scriptures, Upper Egypt is scarcely mentioned, while by the Greeks the 
country was spoken of with ignorant wonder. In the Iliad, Thebes is called the richest 
city in the world, and “the hundred-gated;” but to Homer it was after all only a land 
of fable. It was a current belief in his time that the Olympian divinities were off on 
a holiday trip to the Thebaid at the time when the Greeks, fighting before Troy, for 
twelve days found their prayers unanswered; and nothing is anywhere mentioned by 
Greek writers which shows a reasonable idea in respect to Hgypt. From the time 
of the Twelfth Dynasty we find Egyptian architecture characterized by the presence 
of obelisks and columns, both unknown to the earlier builders. The simplest form of 
Hgyptian pillars is the plain, square pier. Its next form is an octagon, formed by cut- 
ting off the angles of the square. This same step, carried further, gives a sixteen- 
sided or a thirty-two sided figure; and then the idea seems to have been suggested 
of hollowing out the faces of this polygon with reversed curves, making a fluting; and 
we thus reach what has been called, from its extreme similarity to the Greek order of 
that name, the proto-Doric column. One of the oldest forms is that shown in the 
Exterior Wall at Karnak (see page 75), tapering regularly from the base to the setting 
on of the capital. A large class of pillars have what is called the lotus-bud capital, 
evidently in imitation of the bud of that sacred plant. Another large class are distin- 
euished by Isis heads, or heads of Typhon, as ornaments of its capitals. The origin 
of this is easily explained, for early examples show the Isis head painted, or carved in 
low relief on the faces of square piers, and gradually the relief becomes higher, while 
the column grows more slender, till we attain the full development of the idea as 
at Khartas (page 87). Also we find many instances of square piers with colossi 
seated in front of them, as in the illustration entitled “Court of the Colossi,” page 79. 
But these are in no sense caryatid columns, the figures neither supporting the archi- 
trave nor strengthening the pillar. ‘They are in fact no part of the architecture, but 
only statues placed architecturally. 

The great Temple-Palace of Karnak is perhaps the noblest structure ever built by 
human hands. Its principal dimensions are twelve hundred feet in length by three 
hundred and sixty feet in breadth, thus covering more than twice the area of St. 
Peter’s at Rome. Its Hypostyle Hall alone is three hundred and forty feet long and 
a hundred and seventy broad, an area more extensive than that of Cologne Cathe- 
dral. The original portion of this temple, or rather group of temples, was the sanc- 
tuary built by Osortasen, the great king of the Twelfth Dynasty. It seems to have 
been the only structure left standing during the five centuries of Shepherd rule. Or 
possibly it may have been pulled down by them, and restored again, its great pol- 
ished stones being nearly indestructible. At all events, on the restoration of the 
native dynasty, the first king, Amenophis, inclosed the earlier structure with a temple 


one hundred and twenty feet square. Later, Thothmes I. built in front of it a hall, 


78 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


surrounded by colossi backed by piers; and Thothmes II. erected behind it a palace 
or temple. With these additions, the temple covered a space five hundred and forty 
feet in length and two hundred and eighty in width, when the “ Sun-worshipper ” 
broke in upon the great Highteenth Dynasty. When the native race were again re- 
stored, Manepthah commenced the great hall, which he nearly completed during his 
lifetime. This Hypostyle Hall is the culminating point of the whole group of build- 
ings. Our illustration (page 76) gives a suggestion of it, but no words can describe 
its beauty, and no artist has yet been able to reproduce its form so as to give those 
who have not seen it an idea of its grandeur. The mass of its great central piers, 
illumined by a flood of light from the clerestory, and the smaller pillars of the 
wings gradually fading into obscurity, were so arranged and lighted as to give an 


idea of infinite space, while the beauty and massiveness of the forms, and the bril- 


Medinet, Court of Rhamses. 


liancy of the colored decorations, make a wonderful ensemble, fillmg the mind with 
admiration and awe. Wonderful as is the construction of this group of palaces, 
their demolition is even more marvellous. “Solid pylons of enormous bulk are broken 
in twain,” says Bartlett; “vast built columns have been dragged from their founda-— 
tions. Architraves many tons in weight, wrenched from their places, now impend over 
the aisles, caught and wedged in place by yet heavier masses, which have thus been 
giving them support for ages.” Who or what wrought this destruction? —“ History 
sinketh beneath her cloud. The traveller, as he paceth amazedly through these des- — 
erts, asketh of her, and she mumbleth something; but what it is he heareth not.” 

The ruins of Karnak are upon the eastern side of the Nile; across the river, — 
on the Libyan side, the Temple-Palace of Rhamses III. crowns the rising ground of 


what is now called Medinet-Haboo. This is the latest of the four great temples of 


mere 
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COURT OF THE COLOSSI. 


80 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


Thebes, and is by far the best preserved. You enter between two pavilions, which 
may have been originally porters’ lodges, and passing through the Court of Rhamses, 
perhaps the private residence of the Pharaoh, emerge into a spacious area, which leads 


to the great court of the temple. Here all the peculiarities of Pharaonic Egyptian 


Medinet, Temple-Palace of Rhamses III. 


architecture are displayed in the highest perfection, and bring most clearly to the 
mind the spirit and genius of that extraordinary people. It is, with the exception 
of Karnak, the most striking and magnificent interior in Hgypt. 

Its lateral colonnades, forty feet long, are composed of columns about seven and 


a half feet in diameter. Hach of the extremities presents an elevation of eight piers, 


~~“ 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 81 


fronted by colossal statues. To these majestic colossi the court owes its impressive 
grandeur. Many of them are shattered, and some almost gone, but the imagination 
easily supplies the loss, and pictures all the original splendor of the place. 


“The graye grandeur of this court,” says Curtis, “is unsurpassed in architec- 


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Hermonthis. 


ture. Open to the sky above, a double range of massive columns supported the 
massive pediment. The columns upon the court were Osiride,—huge square masses, 
covered all over with hieroglyphics, and with figures with folded hands carved in 
bold relief upon their faces. The rear row was of circular columns with papyrus 


or lotus capitals. The walls dimly seen behind this double colonnade are all carved 


82 ; VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


with history, and the figures upon them, with those of the architraves, variously ~ 
colored.” } z 

This colored decoration is indescribably effective here. Bas-reliefs in such lim- : 
itless profusion would be objectionable; but these colored intaglios, extending as they 
do over the whole building, give an even tone of ornamentation, without impairing the 
outline or disturbing the general effect. They are cut three or four inches deep f 
into the solid stone, and their edges are as sharp as the day the workmen left 
them. 


Reluctantly we bid adieu to Thebes, and resume our journey southward. For a 


erage 


iii 


KIN 


| 


few hours modern life resumes its influence, as we admire the fine husbandry of Mus-' 
tapha Pacha’s estates. There is something more attractive further on, however: at 
some distance from the river, four beautiful columns rising in front of a little sanc- 
tuary bring us to the first Ptolemaic ruin. This building, the Temple of Hermonthis, 
was erected by Cleopatra, whose name is associated here with that of her son Casa- 
rion. The scene is extremely picturesque. It is Egyptian and yet Greek. The cap- 
itals are of the same style as those at Medinet, while the elongated shafts tell plainly . 
the influence of foreign art. 

Half-way between Hermonthis and Phile, we passed Kom-Ombos in the moon- 


a 


| | Y a 


ib TTT i HALIM 
eee Tesi 


THE TEMPLE OF ISIS. 


7 


84 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


light. It is a temple undermined by the river, and half buried in the sand. A 
peculiarity of structure in this temple is explained by an inscription. A column in- 
stead of an interspace occupies the centre of the portico, and two lateral entrances 
lead to double doorways. ‘The inscription tells us that the temple was dedicated to 
two divinities. 

A whole day and night yet separated us from Syene and the Cataract; winds, 
rocks, and river delayed our advance. Along at our right stretched the low green 
island of Elephantine, covered with ruins almost invisible, fabulous home of those 
ichthyophagi who served Cambyses as his ambassadors to the Ethiopians. At last we 
had reached the Cataract, which consists of three rapids separated from each other by 
smooth water. The ascent is difficult, and though by no means dangerous, requires 
much knowledge and skill. Carrying boats up and down the rapids is the great 
business of the Nubians who live on the borders of Egypt, and the revs who com- 
mands the large squad of men necessary to take a boat up is an important and 
dignified character. 

The scene around us was wild and picturesque. Great masses of black rock, 
rising out of the water wet and shining, like a herd of buffaloes petrified in vari- 
ous attitudes, serve as points of support to which are attached cables. The half- 
naked troop of Nubians, shouting and gesticulating wildly, dash into the water, or 
scramble upon these rocks, dragging us slowly upwards. Night fell as we passed 
through the first rapid, and we came to anchor in the smooth water, amid much con-— 
gratulation from the Nubians on our lucky advance thus far, as they bade us good 
night, and disappeared over the bank. At daylight they returned, and resumed their 
labors. The passage of the other two rapids was achieved in much the same fashion, 
and three o’clock in the afternoon brought us out into the broad, smooth current 
above the Cataract. Here lie the twin islands Phile and Beghieh. 

Philee was the holy island of Egypt. Seen from the river, a belt of green sur- 
rounds it, and the bank is a tangled mass of flowering plants and vines, above which 
tower the stately palm-trees. The surface of the island is a mass of ruins, but the — 
great Temple of Isis yet stands, and a smaller hypzthral temple .overhangs the 
river. Two colonnades, whose increasing divergence reduces the optical error by 
which parallel lines seem to approach each other as they retreat, unite these two 
temples. ‘The western, and more important of the two, consists of thirty-three columns, 
whose shafts are covered with intaglios, and whose capitals, ingeniously varied, never 
repeat the same design. Sixteen columns, in less complete preservation, form the 
eastern colonnade. About in the centre of the western gallery, a flight of steps 
whose base is often under water cuts the continuous rampart, and descends to the 
river. This propylon recalls the Roman epoch, and is not less beautiful for that: 


everywhere the head of Augustus, the sceptical profile of Tiberius, or the brutal face 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 85 


of Claudius, surmounts the great meagre figure carved with that uniformity from which 
Egyptian art never knew how to vary. 

| The Temple of Isis, represented in the illustration on page 83, is the smaller 
hypzthral structure by the river-bank. The eye rests with delight upon its airy grace 
and unadorned simplicity. There is not an hieroglyphic on it, nor any sculpture ex- 
cept the winged globe over the portal leading to the colonnade. Open aboye, as its 
name hypethral implies, it is beautiful indeed. No roof was ever intended for it, 


and the walls between the columns are built up only about a third of the height. 


HHH] 


Philee, Colonnade. 


Several courses of stone intervening between the columns and the cornice add to the 
singular effect, but in no degree diminish the beauty of the edifice. 

The temples of Philx might easily be restored, or at least their further decay 
prevented ; and let no one scorn these temples because of’ their comparatively recent 
date. It is true that to the epoch of Rhamses belong most of the colossi among 
Egyptian ruins, but the advent of the Ptolemies was the signal for a marvellous 
revival in arts and letters. What architecture lost in massiveness it gained in grace- 
ful proportion. Roman restorations we will not seek to defend ; but the Greek influ- 


ence less brusquely imposed upon the Pharaonic architecture, modified its traditions 


86 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


without altering its spirit or stamping it with a foreign imprint. Nor can we forget 
the debt science owes to the Island of Phils, for here it was that Belzoni, discovered 
that bilingual inscription in which the names of Ptolemy and Cleopatra, written in 
hieroglyphics similar to those of the Rosetta stone, gave the opportunity for the 
younger Champollion to establish the presence of phonetic characters in Kgyptian 
writing, and thus brought about the discovery of the ancient language. 


Philze has its history, political and religious. Key of the Cataract, it became 


the rampart of the Theban dynasties against the incursion of the hordes of Ethio- _ 


pia; it was their refuge when the Shepherd people invaded Lower and Middle Egypt. 
The Rhamses, when they had driven out these foreigners, covered the two islands 


with palaces and temples; and though Phile has preserved nothing from this period, 


at Beghieh are extensive ruins belonging to the reign of an ancestor of Sesostris. — 


Beghieh. 


This king, Amenophis, going to fight the Ethiopians, left on a rock an inscription 
attesting his presence. We may attribute to the devastations of Cambyses, near the 
end of the sixth century before Christ, the poverty of Philz in buildings of very 


ancient date. The last national Egyptian dynasty began to restore the island from 


its ruins about 3870 B. o.; the Ptolemies continued the restoration which had been — 


broken in upon by a new Persian conquest; and we have seen that the Czgesars 


entered upon the inheritance of the Greek kings. When the Roman Empire began ; 


to give way upon all its frontiers, Phile was its last citadel in Nubia; Diocletian for- — 


tified the island, and constructed an arch of triumph of which three gates still remain. 
The Pharaohs, the Ptolemies, and the Caesars in turn abandoned Philee, but its 


gods remained, and sustained the long siege of the new faiths. Osiris, oldest of 


ae ca 


a 
4 
+ 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 82 


Higyptian divinities, had his tomb in the sacred island; and with bated breath thc 
Hgyptian was wont to swear, as his most solemn oath, * By him who sleeps in 
Phile.” Here was the home of Isis and Hator, and the sacredness of the place 


increased as the worship of its local divinities spread over the Roman world. Chris: 


thy wt fi 
ue vet 


We 


ik 
iit 


il 


{ 


tianity came late to Philw, and in the latter half of the sixth century of our era 
Isis still had her worshippers under the Hgyptian palms; nor was it until the Arab 
invasion swept the land that the ancient idol ceased at last to be an object of ven- 


eration to: any. 


After many hours spent in exploring Philz, we crossed to Beghich. This island 


88 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


(see page 86) is singularly composed of high granite hills, rismg amid fields of 
dhourra; the huts of its few inhabitants are so built among ancient foundations and — 
heaps of rubbish and ruined walls, that no thorough investigation of antiquities could 
be made without demolishing these residences of to-day. It is a romantic and inter- — 
esting place from the strong contrast of the rude masses of barren rock with the 
luxuriant vegetation around them, and from the perfect quiet of the scene, broken only : 
by the indistinct noise of the water-wheels, like the sound of far-off church-bells. 

Since yesterday we have been in Nubia; we hear the Arabic language no longer; 


through the gate of the Cataract we enter into the very land of the sun. It is a 


hill 


i] 


AW 


mn 


| 
rm i 


\ 


q 


Sl 
HOTELIM2 HUREL« 
Maharakka. 


lonely, solitary land, and still the great nations of the past have been here and left 
memorials of their grandeur. Khartas is a ruin of the Roman time; but it was built 
of blocks taken from older monuments, and we recognize heads of Isis belonging to 
the very early periods of Pharaonic architecture. 

Further south we come to the ruins of Maharakka, also of late date, and infe- 
rior in extent to many others; precious, however, for their picturesque grouping. A 
court surrounded by columns yet remains a little distance off; on the eastern side 


lie the shapeless ruins of an edifice more ancient, which, perhaps, furnished material 
for the later structure. | 


MURCHISON’S FALLS OF THE NILE. 


YO VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


And now the Second Cataract of the Nile bars our way. Like the first Cata- 
ract, it is but a series of rapids. Let not the reader fancy, however, that cataracts 
upon the Nile are all of this character. Far in the south, but a few miles from 
the equator, there is one fall which may measure itself against the beautiful cas- 
cades of the Western world. It was discovered in 1862 by Sir Samuel Baker, and 
received from him the name of Murchison’s Falls, in honor of the President of the 
Royal Geographical Society. On cither side of the river rises a wall of about three 
hundred feet, magnificently wooded with trees whose verdure is of the most intense 
brilliancy. Through a cleft in the rocks, the river, here about a hundred and fifty 
feet wide, springs with a single leap down a perpendicular precipice of over a hundred 
feet into an abyss of black volcanic rocks. ‘The dazzling whiteness of the foam forms 
a striking contrast to this black basin; and tropical palms and wild bananas set off the 
picture. 

At the Second Cataract, however, we pause. Here man’s kingdom ends. Beyond 
is Darfour and Khartoum, visited by caravans, and by an indefatigable Sir Samuel 
Baker; there are kings and slaves; there are human beings, if you choose to call them 
so; there are, and there have been, no historic races. devoured by sands, and obstructed 
by endless rapids, the Nile is no longer the splendid river which mirrors an_ ancient 
civilization. But if, turning our eyes from the southern horizon, we pierce the northern 
with our gaze, what sublime spectacles, what heights and what declines, what tremen- 
dous alternations are presented to us in the life of a people to whom we owe so much, 
—a people who were living in the plenitude of their glory when our ancestors yet 
vegetated upon the Asiatic table-land, and disputed with savage beasts the roots and 
acorns which were their food! See those crowded cities, those temples, those tombs 
where the dead were thought to be alive so long as their forms retained human sem- 
blance. Recall the ravages of the Shepherd Kings and of the Sun-worshippers; sum- 
mon the mighty shades of Alexander, Cleopatra, Czesar; lastly, the Arab conquest, when 
the flames of fanaticism swept over the land; and say, what river in all the world 


has such a place in history, such a deep and tragic interest, as the Nile? 


UR illustrations from LHastern Africa appropriately commence 


less 


with Nubia, whose seaport, Massaoua, a dull little town on 


a 


lees (ules Gl 


the Red Sea, is the gateway by which explorers of Abyssinia, 


from the time of Bruce to the present day, have entered 


ore Gera) 


upon their interesting and perilous journey. 


A European colony exists in this Nubian seaport, com- 


posed of one or two consular agents, a few representatives of Huro- 


G 


A 


pean commercial houses, and a little band of Roman Catholic missiona- 


ries. Of these latter, the earliest comers were Capuchins; but in 
1855, some Lazarist fathers, who had been expelled from Abyssinia, 
made a more substantial settlement, and are, at the present time, a- 
numerous and influential body. They have built a large dwelling- 
house near the town, and also a church, and to this, in 1864, they 
added a printing-press for Abyssinian books. 

The climate of this part of Nubia is extremely warm, but proba- 
. bly not more unhealthy than the neighborhood of the Red Sea is in 
general. An Anglo-Indian proverb says, “ Pondicherry is a hot bath, Aden a furnace, 
but Massaoua is the fire itself.” This, however, seems to be slightly exaggerated; the 
over-statement is probably due to European consular agents, who dread the Red Sea 


posts above everything, and are inclined to paint the country even worse than it is. 
91 


92 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


Inland Nubia is in great part a desert, cut by mountain ranges whose valleys 
are fertile but ill cultivated. At present it is a most inaccessible country, but an 
enterprise has been planned by the Viceroy of Egypt, which, if it should ever be 
successful, would have the effect of changing the aspect of Nubia, for the first time 
since the days of the Pharaohs. This is nothing less than a railway from the Nile 
to the Red Sea, embracing in an immense ellipse the entire country with the exception 
of Kordofan ; an area, that is to say, as large as the whole empire of Austria. This 


proposed road would start from Korosko, the extreme point of steam navigation on the 


Khor of D ee 
Nile, follow the mountain passes through which caravans now make their way, return 
to the Nile again at Abou-Hamed, and go along its bank as far as Khartoum, thence 
striking eastwardly by way of Kassala, to the Red Sea at Saouakin. 

Many difficulties would be found in carrying out this enterprise ; at several points 
the way is barred by great granitic ridges and limestone hills. At the same time 
there are unusual advantages in the countless valleys and dry beds of rivers, so 
common a feature in Nubia. To one accustomed only to Huropean and American 
rivers, this latter suggestion may seem extremely unpractical, since no western engi- 
neer would regard a river’s bed as, under any circumstances, available for a railway 


track, In Nubia, however, the presence of water in the bed of a river is of so 


fi 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 


Ne) 
w2 


rare occurrence, and its depth even in the rainy season so very trifling a matter, that 
it is entirely within the limits of engineering skill to lay a track there and to make 
it secure at all seasons of the year. 

The Barka, the most important river of the country, is but a ribbon of white 
sand, save for a few days in the summer, when the torrents from the high plateaus 
of Barea and Ayla make their way down into its broad channel, whose sands have 
soon absorbed them completely. These torrents, called khors in the language of the 
country, are of great importance to its prosperity ; they are not merely the feeders 


but the actual creators of the Nubian soil, and after they are quite dried up, there 


Rock near Kassala. 


is always a chance that by digging from two to eight feet there may be found 
water, which the saturated sands have preserved in their depths. 

In the illustration on the opposite page is represented one of these khors, which, 
flowing through a light alluvial soil, and not at all hemmed in by rocky banks, 
spreads wide as a lake, surrounded on all sides by luxuriant vegetation. 

Another peculiarity of the Nubian mountains is the abundance of curiously shaped 
rocks resembling those which in Brittany and many other parts of Europe are called 


dolmens. It has been questioned whether these rocks were natural curiosities, left in 


94. VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


their grotesque shapes and odd positions by great diluvial changes, or whether they 
were Druidic altars erected by human hands in some pre-historic period. The one 
represented on the preceding page is found in the neighborhood of Kassala, and others 
more closely resembling altars exist near the Red Sea. 

Our illustrations from Nubia are, it will be observed, of natural scenery alone; 
the great architectural remains of this country belong to the Nile. In the narrow, 
fertile strip watered by that great river, and hemmed in by mountains on either 


side, from the Second Cataract down to the sea, lived a people, not Egyptian nor 


Lake Tana. 


Nubian, in the modern acceptation of those words, and theirs were the temples and 
palaces whose ruins fill the world with admiration. Over the mountains, eastward 
to the Red Sea, lived in their time, as now, a barbarous race, idle, ignorant, nomadic. 


They have no place in history, and all that the traveller can bring back to show 


us of their land are pictures of its desolate mountain scenery, its solitary lagoons, 


and its strange rocky altars of Nature to an Unknown God. 
If we turn now to Abyssinia, adjoinnmg Nubia on the south, we find nearly the 
same lack of all memorials of human skill and genius. Nature must still furnish 


us with our most important pictures. First and chief among these is Lake Tana, the 


SCENES [NV MANY LANDS. 95 


Dembea of the maps, a great body of fresh water, believed by all the early explorers 
to be the source of the Nile. 

This lake lies six thousand feet above the level of the sea. It is seventy miles 
in length and forty in breadth, and apparently was in earlier times of much greater 
extent, as the flat fertile plains around it indicate. Though subject to violent storms, 


the Tana is perpetually navigated by the native people, who venture on its surface 


\ \\ 
A 


pee XO 


Cascade of Antona Kirkos. 


in little flat-bottomed . boats, made of rushes or bamboo akin to the papyrus of 
Egypt. Besides rough weather, another danger awaits these frail skiffs, in the shape 
of countless hippopotami, residents of the lake-shore, and marauders by land and 
water. When these unwieldy creatures come out on dry ground, however, and ravy- 
age the fields, the natives turn out in force and kill them; whereupon follow great 


banquetings, for the flesh of the hippopotamus is an Abyssinian dainty. Lake 


96 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


Tana contains many islands, which are inhabited chiefly by monks. That this was 
also the case at a much earlier period is shown by the ruins of large monasteries, 
and the buildings were evidently of importance. Two small and barren islands, called 
Dek, served as a state’s prison for civil and ecclesiastical offenders. 

Upon the shores of the lake the vegetation is luxuriant. Cereals of all kinds 
thrive there ; cotton grows well; the vine and the peach-tree mature fruit of great 
excellence. 

Twenty rivers from the high Abyssinian plateau fall into this lake, and many of 
them come down in picturesque cascades, quite as beautiful as those more famous 
ones which a world of travellers admire yearly in Switzerland. We do not overstate 


the case in estimating the whole number of Abyssinian cascades at more than three 


Ruined Castle of Guizoara, on the Arno-Garno. 


thousand. In so great a number, of course, there is a boundless variety, from the 
mere rapid, tumbling over successive rocks, to the single sheet that falls from so 
considerable a height that it scatters in spray before reaching the water below. The 
cascade selected for illustration is that of Amntona Kirkos, which makes so strong a 
leap from its high level that it describes the arc of a circle, leaving behind it a 
clear space, through which the adventurous traveller may pass, with the rock on one 
side, and the green translucent wave of the falling water on the other, as at Niagar: 
through the Cave of the Winds. 

Our last Abyssinian picture brings us back to the work of human hands. It is 
the ruined Castle of Guizoara, of which the date and the builder are not positively 
known, but are accounted for by legend, as is also the odd Huropean name of the 
river, the Arno-Garno, on this wise: the castle, it is said, was built for an Abyssinian 


king by two French architects, the one named Arnaud, the other Garnaud. How they 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 97 


came to be in the depths of Abyssinia the story does not mention, and each reader 
must explain this remarkable circumstance as best he can. On the completion of the 
edifice, the king, delighted with its foreign beauty, bade the strangers name their reward. 
After consideration, the Frenchmen replied: “May it please your Majesty to give us 
each an estate near your castle that we may build two houses and dwell therein.” Now, 
the river on which the king’s castle stood was formed by two branches, beautiful clear 
streamlets; and the Frenchmen, being bidden to select their land, chose, the one an 
estate on the east branch, the other, one on the west. They built their houses, and 
lived and died there, in friendly neighborhood to the king’s castle. The two little 
rivers preserved their names, and uniting, flowed, as the Arno-Garno, peacefully down 
into the Great Lake Tana. 

Tt must be agreed that this legend (if one could only believe it!) is greatly 
preferable to the prosaic German commentary, which seeks to derive the river’s name 
from the Italian Arno, or the Arnon of Judea. 

Four hundred miles south of the equator lies Zanzibar, island and town, to which 
we next invite the reader’s attention. The long narrow island is the chief in that 
chain of coralline outposts which line the east coast of Africa, and rises from the 
sea in graceful, wavy outlines of softly rounded hills, their surface clad with verdure 
in every conceivable shade of green, from the light leek color to the deep hue of the 
laurel. Enchanting is the view of Zanzibar, under the brilliant tropical sky, and no 
less enchanting the heavy spicy perfume which fills the air from the clove plantations 
outside the town. ‘The harbor is a fine instance of the barrier reef of coral, raised 
upon a foundation of sandstone. Outside, in every direction, little clusters of coral 
islands abound, and the channels among them are intricate and dangerous. Yet the 
eye rests delighted upon the line of sparkling foam tumbling over the reefs, while in 
the distance the sea is dark-blue and tranquil, and inside, the shoal water is a clear 
light green. 

Entering the harbor, the straight line of the town shows sharply relieved 
against the woods behind it. The city is quite lacking in minarets and towers, and 
only the great, square, white buildings of the consulates and of the Iman’s palace 
rise above the mass of low and wretched hovels forming the inner town. 

The city is built on a triangular spit, connected with the island by an isthmus 
three hundred yards wide. Having neither quay nor breakwater, it suffers constant 
erosion from the sea. This part of the island appears also to be slowly sinking, 
and thus the action of the water is helped on to such a degree that a point where, 
fifty years ago, stood a mosque and a little group of huts, is now four fathoms 
under water. 

The population of the town is reckoned at sixty thousand by the latest estimates. 


By the same law which seems to obtain everywhere, the west end of Zanzibar is its 


98 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


best quarter. Here European residents make their home, and regard themselves as 
comparatively safe from the malaria infesting the rest of the town. ‘The centre con- 
tains the palace and the commercial establishments, while the east end is entirely 
given up to the poor, and is scarcely tolerable to a foreigner even for the briefest 
visit. The streets are deep, winding alleys, hardly twenty feet broad; but within a 
few years a lime pavement and a gutter have been, introduced into many of those 
in the west end, with notable results in the way of cleanliness and comfort. 

The material of which houses are built is coral rag, a substance easily worked 
yet durable,—stone and lime in one. The public buildings are poor and mean, and 
even the mosques have no beauty save their pointed Saracenic arches. Architecture 
may be said to be at a very low ebb in Zanzibar. The masonry shows not a single 


straight line, the arches are not alike in form or size, the floors may have a foot 


Zanzibar. 


of depression between the corners and the middle of the room, and no two apart- 
ments are on the same level. Whatever carpenter’s or locksmith’s work is needed 
is brought from India. Sentences from the Koran on slips of paper, fastened to the 
entrances, and now and then an inscription cut in the lintel, secure the house from 
witchcraft. Against robbers, however, such spiritual defence is not deemed sufficient. 
Bolts and bars abound, the house-doors have enormous padlocks and are studded thick 
with nails, and even the little ventilators high up in the walls are closely barred, 
while the windows themselves are made secure with heavy shutters, closed by night, 
no matter what may be the heat of the apartments. The long, narrow rooms have 
but little furniture. Pictures or engravings are unknown; chandeliers and mirrors 
extremely rare ; a bright-colored rug or two, and half a dozen stiff Indian chairs, 
comprise all the furniture of a reception room in the best houses in Zanzibar. 
Saturated with moisture as all this region is, its flora is marvellously luxuriant. 
Two articles of export, the cocoa-nut and the clove, have made the chief revenue of 


the island. The former grows in a broad band around the shore, and supplies 


ae ee a OU 


= 


 — < 


———_ © 


OO ee eee ee 


VIEW IN THE HEART OF AFRICA. 


100 | VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


almost all the wants of savage life. It furnishes— besides food, wine, .and spirits — 
syrup and yinegar, cords, mats, strainers, tinder, fire-wood, houses and palings, boats 
and sails. The cultivation of the clove-tree has been encouraged, and even for some 
years required by government, and, profitable as it is, might be of much greater 
importance in the hands of a more industrious people. The tree is grown from seed, 
and ripens fruit— which consists, by the way, of the unexpanded flower-buds, if the 
Hibernicism may be allowed —in the fifth year. The crop must be hand-picked, and 
should be as much as six pounds to the tree, were it gathered and dried with 
proper care. 

Besides the clove and the cocoa-nut, there is an almost countless variety of veg- 
etable productions of great value. Almost all European vegetables and cereals, as well 
as those of tropical latitudes, grow in Zanzibar. ‘The sugar-cane would thrive were suf- 
ficient labor bestowed upon it. The caoutchouc-tree flourishes, and might also become 
an important article of export. There are several palm-trees, one of which, the Raphia, 
throws out fronds thirty to forty feet long. There are many varieties of the orange, 
two of the banana, and the pine-apple hedges grow wild, and mature their delicious 
fruit in the greatest abundance. 

The industry of Zanzibar consists mostly in the making of bags and matting 
from the cocoa-nut fibre. This work is done by the women almost exclusively, and 
shows great neatness and even taste in the coloring of a rude pattern in madder. 
There is also a coarse pottery made by the natives. This, however, is of very little 
importance. In conclusion, their gum copal must not be overlooked, a fossil resin, 
washed down by the rains, and gathered by them for export, furnishing an impor- 
tant article of commerce. 

Far inland from Zanzibar, and nearly in the same latitude, lies the great lake 
of Southern Africa, Tanganyika, seen for the first time by European eyes in the 
year 1858. Recent as is its discovery, it has had a traditionary history for more 
than three centuries. The fame of a great inland sea early reached the Portuguese 
settlements on both coasts of the continent, and the early voyagers described it — 
from imagination, unfortunately !— under various names. ‘Tanganyika is its African 
designation, however, and very appropriately, for the word means “a meeting-place 
of waters.” | 

Lake Tanganyika is situated exactly midway between the two coasts of South- 
ern Africa. Its lay is almost due north and south, and its outline a long oval, widen- 
ing in the centre, and contracting almost regularly at the extremities, its length being 
about two hundred and fifty miles and its greatest breadth about twenty. It has 
not been practicable to take soundings, but the water is believed to be very deep, 
and though islets are not infrequent along the margin, only one has been observed . 


in its centre. The shores of the lake are generally low, and a thick fringe of reeds 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 101 


and rushes conceals the land and defends it from the action of the waves. Here 
and there the coast is rough with miniature headlands, whose formation is of sand-~- 
stone strata, tilted, broken, and dislocated. On the hill summits around it are groves 
of giant trees; manioc and cereals grow on the slopes, and the lower ground abounds 
in plantains and Guinea palms. 

It is now believed that the Tanganyika receives and absorbs the whole river 
system of that portion of the Central African depression whose watershed conyerges 
to this great reservoir. It lies much lower than the other lakes, being but eighteen 
hundred and fifty feet above the sea. Its position and surroundings make it at times 
a wind-trap, and hence, subject to the most violent and sudden storms. Its water, 


which is deliciously sweet and pure, is sometimes of a dull sea-green, and at others 


Lake Tanganyika. 


of a clear soft blue, light and milky, like tropical seas. Under a strong wind the 
waves rise in yeasty lines, foaming up from a turbid greenish surface of menacing 
aspect. There is usually but little variety of temperature upon the lake. By day, 
in fair weather, there are light, variable breezes, subsiding late in the afternoon, fol- 
lowed in the evening by a steady wind blowing on shore. There is also a heavy 
eround-swell rolling in. During the rains, the lake is, as has been said, subject to 
violent and sudden storms. 

Around the Tanganyika sixteen tribes have their homes, and they navigate its 
waters in the rudest of canoes, paddling with a stout staff six feet long. In these 


canoes. they creep along the shore, and only when the weather is most favorable 


102 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


venture to push across. The negro races never work silently, and their paddling is 
accompanied by a monotonous and melancholy howl, answered by yells and shouts of 
the chorus, and now and then a shrill boyish scream, while the bray of horns and 
clang of tomtoms, blown and beaten by men in the bows of the larger canoes, lasts 
all day, except when some sudden terror reduces everybody to silence. With all 
this, their usual rate of speed is small enough, at best not over four or five miles 
an hour, and ordinarily not more than three, or two and a half. 

Still further south, in the country of the Makololos, are the wonderful Victoria 
Falls, discovered by Livingston in 1855. This explorer visited them again three 
years later, and, in all, about twenty Europeans have since made their way through 
the difficulties and dangers with which this freak of nature is beset. The river Zam- 
besi rises far inland and flows nearly due south for seven hundred miles of its 
course; then, at the Victoria Falls, turns eastwardly and makes its way to the ocean, 
across a distance of eleven hundred miles. 

The marvel of these falls is this: we have a river three thousand feet broad, 
whose strong steady current is suddenly swallowed up by a deep and narrow fis- 
sure in the rock which forms its bed, so that the stream itself seems to have dis- 
appeared into the earth, until, coming to the very edge of the crevasse, we look 
down and see it, four hundred feet below, making its way off through the extension 
of this chasm, in an eastwardly direction, almost exactly at right angles to its for- 
mer course. 

On three sides of the river are ridges, three or four hundred feet high, cov- 
ered with forests, the red soil appearing among the trees. From a distance of five 
or six miles away, the five great columns of vapor are seen, white below, higher 
up becoming darker in color, blown back a little by the wind, and seeming to mingle 
with the clouds. These columns are caused by the compression the water suffers in 
its fall into a wedge-shaped space, whose unyielding basalt walls offer no possible 
escape to the tormented flood. 

A small island lies on the lip of the chasm, and is reached in a canoe, by much 
careful piloting among the rapids. Landing, the explorer makes his way to the edge 
and looks over. On the right of the island one sees nothing but a dense white 
cloud, which, when the sun is high, has two rainbows in it. From this cloud rushes 
up a great jet of vapor like escaping steam, to a height of two or three hundred 
feet; then, condensing, it falls in a perpetual shower of rain, which chiefly comes 
to the ground across the chasm, where, some yards back from the edge, grows a row 
of evergreen trees, kept perpetually wet by this shower. From about their roots a 
number of little streamlets gather and run down towards the gulf; but as they drop 
over the steep wall, the ascending vapor licks them up and they disappear. Thus 


they are always running down, but never reach the bottom. On the left of the 


ve 


SS 


SSS 5S SS 


VICTORIA FALLS, 


104 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


island, the water is seen, a white rolling mass, moving tumultuously towards the 
escape open to it at the left. Further in this direction the fissure deepens, and its 
edges are more sloping, so that one can slide partially down towards the water. 

At the Falls the chasm is only eighty feet wide, but at the outlet of the river 
it opens to a width of two hundred and seventy feet, making short zigzags, separated 
by narrow ledges, scarcely broader in some cases than a footpath. 

The illustration on the preceding page is made from a sketch taken on the spot; 
it is, therefore, for the most part accurate; but to see into the chasm as much as 
is here represented, the observer must be standing on the very edge of the preci- 
pice. The three central columns should be less in size than the others, and all 
should haye a more conical form. "With these changes, the reader may rely on the 
absolute fidelity of the sketch. i 


a 
i) 


| 


4 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 105 


MADAGASCAR AND MAURITIUS, 


) ADAGASCAR, an island lying along the South African coast, 
separated from the continent by the Channel of Mozambique, is, 
after Borneo and New Guinea, the largest island in the world, 
being nine hundred miles in length and four hundred in breadth. 
Its surface has great variety, making it really a miniature con- 
tinent, with its system of rivers and mountains, lakes and plains. 


Along the shore it is generally level, with the exception of the 


south-eastern coast, where the mountains approach very near 


es ye: 
7% » the sea; and a great dorsal range, with parallel ridges, runs from 
XQEAS 


ez 4 north to south the whole length of the island, rismg into peaks eight 
Ate or nine thousand feet high. In this mountainous region of Madagas- 
~ car there is every variety of highland scenery, countless lakes and 
WW) ie y 5 y> 
| le rocky torrents, and immense solitary plateaus, quite uninhabited by man. 
ad The population of the island is conjecturally stated by different 
‘) PoP J 7 y 
1s travellers, their estimates varying from a million and a half to six 
if 
‘ million inhabitants. It is well understood, however, that four different 
AMP races are found here: the Kaffirs in the south; in the west, the 


ay 
negroes; at the north, the Arab race; and on the east coast and in the interior, the 


Malays. These principal races are divided into many tribes, of which the Horas, of 
Malay blood, are the most numerous and important, and have obtained, since the 
commencement of the present century, almost the entire control of the island. 

The Port of Tamataya is the best on the coast, and is the point at which 
travellers usually begin their exploration of Madagascar. A journey of a few miles 
inland or northward at once opens to the view all the marvels of vegetation for 
which the island is renowned. The road is but a winding footpath, leading up hill 
and down, crossing chasms on fallen tree-trunks, and everywhere affording glimpses 
of exquisite pictures, endowed with all the virgin beauty of a primeval paradise. 

Two or three varieties of the pandanus are remarkable. One, not over twelve 


feet high, has the centre leaves of its head stuck together at their points, while the 


106 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


outer ones, free and pendulous, resemble the leaves with which the Chinese line their 
tea-chests. Another pandanus, tall and straight as a fir-tree, forty or fifty feet high, 
and crowned with an upright plume, sends off long horizontal branches, with feath- — 
ery tips of flag-like leaves, suggesting a gigantic larch, except for the stiffness of 
its growth. 

The Urania speciosa, known as .the Traveller’s Tree, rises from the ground with 
a thick succulent stem like a plantain, and at a height of thirty feet begins to send 
out from its centre alternate long broad leaves, the lower ones extending horizontally, 
and drooping so that the tree is like a great palm-leaf fan in shape. ‘The stem 
or trunk becomes hard and dry for a distance of ten or twelve feet up from the 
ground, when it reaches its maturity, in order to sustain the leafy weight above it; 
but the tree never loses the effect of being some gigantic vegetable. There are 
twenty or more leaves in all, each leaf being five or six feet long, upon a stalk 
perhaps eight feet in length. The effect of this cluster of bright light-green leaves, 
spreading out like a fan on a handle thirty feet long, is most extraordinary and 
beautiful, and ‘is conspicuous for miles away. Seen along a mountain crest, they 
are like a row of Indian sachems with plumed heads. Within this leafy cluster are 
three or four branches of seed-pods, resembling the fruit of the plantain. There are 
forty or fifty pods on each branch, and when they ripen they burst open, showing - 
thirty or more seeds within, each about the size of a bean, and enclosed in an 
enyelope of dark-blue silk, like that of corn. 

The usefulness of the Urania speciosa is no less remarkable. Its common designa- 
tion, the “ 'Traveller’s Tree,” is due to the fact that it furnishes water to the passer-by, 
with which he may safely quench his thirst. To obtain this water it is only needful 
to pierce the leaf-stalks about six inches above the point where they spring from the 
tree, and each stalk will furnish more than a quart of the pure clear liquid. It is not 
a secretion of the tree, but the result of a mechanical contrivance, so to speak. There 
is a natural cavity at the base of each stem, into which the water collected from rains 
on the broad ribbed surface of the leaf, runs down and collects in abundance. But the 
Urania might also be called the “ Builder’s Tree” ; its leaves are used to thatch all the 
houses on the east coast of the island, its stems, neatly laid together, form the partitions 
and often the sides of the building, and the outside bark, stripped from the soft part 
of the trunk and beaten flat, is laid for the floors in pieces a foot and a half wide and 
twenty or thirty feet long. Besides these uses, the leaves of the Urania, when green, 
are used as wrappers for packages, and are daily sold in the market of Tamatava for 
table-cloths, dishes and plates, and, properly adjusted, for drinking-vessels and spoons. 

The bamboo, abundant in the forests of Madagascar, is exceedingly graceful. In 
one variety it grows as a creeper, sending out stems composed of small joints feathered 


with slender leafy branches, and hanging in festoons from tree to tree. In another it 


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CROSSING A CHASM IN MADAGASCAR. 


108 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


grows straight and self-supporting to a height of forty feet, fringed at every joint with 
its circlet of little branches covered with long, lance-shaped leaves. The slender stem 
swaying in the wind, with all its plumy mass of leaves, is a picture of rare and 
ever-varying beauty. ? | 

The abundance of flowering plants and ferns in this garden of Nature is also 
marvellous. Orchids in every variety are abundant; not only do they grow in the 
ground like their kindred in other lands, but-— to leave no place unadorned — they 
find support and nourishment far up in trees. Sometimes in the axil of a great branch 
of some dead and whitened tree, where there is not left a fragment of bark, one sees 
a bunch of moss and a cluster of orchids growing with the greatest vigor; or at the 


top of a tall trunk, thirty feet from the ground, a mass of the Angrecus, with its 


The Baobab Tree. 


long fleshy leaves; or a bird’s-nest fern thrives, as if in a rustic flower-pot, planted 
there and tended by no hand save that of Nature herself. Countless flowers adorn 
the hill-sides, and the soft, verdurous meadows; many of them are unfamiliar, but the 
European stranger sees with delight a blue Tradescantia, like the forget-me-not of 
home, and heath with pink and lilac blossoms, the same— save for added luxuriance 
—as that which grows upon the moors of Scotland. 

We must not forget the giant and veteran of all tropical forests, the monstrous 
Baobab, whose age is often reckoned, not merely by hundreds, but by thousands of 
years. This tree was discovered by Adanson in South Africa, in 1748, and has 
been found upon the western coast of Madagascar. It attains a height of sixty feet, 
and its trunk has a circumference of seventy or seventy-five feet. Its lower branches 


stretch out horizontally to a great distance, and droop at their extremities almost to 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 109 


touch the ground. ‘The leaves are dark green, and compound, being composed of five 
radiating leaflets. The flower is large and white, and the fruit about the size of a 
quart bottle, and, though eaten by the natives, is regarded rather as medicine than 
food. It seems impossible to destroy this tree, for even when cut down, it still 
grows in its horizontal position, while its huge roots, forty or fifty feet long, still 
retain their vitality and send up new growth. ‘The Baobab perishes, however, in 
some instances, by a singular disease of its own fibre, a softening of the woody 
tissue, which, going on for some time imperceptibly, suddenly crushes the tree in 
upon itself, a mass of ruin. 

Our illustration below represents a chief’s cabin at Tamatava, the seaport to 


which we have before referred. It shows us a well-built dwelling forty feet long 


Chief’s Cabin at Tamatava. 


and between thirty and forty feet high. Externally the structure is composed entirely 
of stems and leaves of the Traveller’s Tree. Could we enter, we should find a neat, 
well-laid floor, a fine large mat in the centre, and an English four-post bedstead in 
one corner, piled with comfortable sleeping-mats ; in another corner, choice cooking 
utensils and bags of rice and other stores, with materials for making mats. English 
and European weapons are hung against the walls; in the centre of the room is a 
table of native workmanship, and, scattered here and there, various chairs and rude 
seats made of matting, resembling high square ottomans. 

The walls of this cabin inside are covered with rofia cloth, a material of native 
fabrication, made by the women, who weave it, in a kind of rude loom, from the 


fibrous inner bark of the Rofia palm. 
Five hundred miles eastward of Madagascar lies the island of Mauritius, which 


110 | VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


has been for three centuries a European colony, belonging in turn to Holland, to 
France, and to England. Discovered by a Portuguese navigator, it was first. taken 
possession of by the Dutch in 1598, who gave it the name Mauritius, in honor of 
Prince Maurice of Nassau. They occupied the island till 1712, then relinquished it, 
to concentrate their strength at the Cape of Good Hope. ‘Three years later, M. 
Dufresne laid claim to it in the name of the French government, and in 1721 it 
received the name of the Isle of France. During the French Revolution the island 
was governed by colonial assemblies, but in 1810 was captured by the English, whose 
rights being recognized by the treaties of 1814 and 1815, it has since remained an 
English colony, under its earlier name, Mauritius. 

The island is thirty-nine miles long and thirty-four broad, at its extreme dimen- 
sions, and has been estimated to contain a population of nearly three hundred thou- 


sand inhabitants. Its scenery is extremely picturesque, from the grand and _ bold 


: 
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LGA YANN mI Mm 


Port Louis, Quay. 


outlines of its lofty hills, with their peculiarly formed summits. The northern part 
of the island is a vast plain covered with cane lands; the centre, an elevated plateau, 
fifteen hundred feet above the level of the sea; and the coast is deeply indented 
with bays, affording many good harbors, of which Port Louis, Black River, and | 
Grand Port are the chief. The climate of Mauritius is agreeable, though extremely 
hot from December to April. In May it begins to grow cooler, and until Novem- 
ber remains delightful. The chief industry of the island is the raising of sugar, 
which, with the rum distilled from the refuse cane, gives Mauritius its importance in 
the commercial world, and attracts to its harbor the vessels of all nations. The 
plantations are cultivated by coolies from Madras and Bombay, who are estimated to 
be two thirds of the entire population. 

The city of Port Louis occupies as large an. area as Rouen or Bordeaux, but 
is somewhat less populous. The streets are broad and regular. There is a French — 


cathedral, a Protestant church, two mosques, a fine bazaar built of iron and glass, a 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. — 111 


theatre, and magnificent dry docks. The dwelling-houses of Port Louis are one or two 
stories in height, and usually built of stone, colored white or yellow. They are pro- 
tected from the sun by verandas and lattice work, and stand within enclosures opening 
by wide ornamental gateways upon the principal streets. These court-yards are planted 
with flowers and filled with the rarest and most beautiful tropical trees. Among: these 
are the bread-fruit and the tamarind, with its lofty light-green foliage, the bamboo, 
the cocoa-nut, and two or three varieties of palms. Of flowering trees the display 
has no equal in the world, consisting of Ixoras and Hibiscus, with blossoms of 


every hue; the Poinsetta pulcherrima, with its deep crimson bracts; the snap-dragon, 


UU Oe 


CAR COMY au 


Black River. 


or Pterocarpus, at times a large tree, all a mass of yellow bloom; the Hugenia, with 
‘pink, myrtle-like flowers; the Kigha pinnata, or chandelier-tree, covered with purple 
bells, resembling those of the Cobewa scandens ; and, conspicuous above all, the Poin- 
cinia regia, a compact grower and regular in form, forty or fifty feet tall, and from 
December to April presenting, amid its delicate, pea-green, pinnated leaves, a vast 
pyramid of clusters of dazzling scarlet flowers. Seen over the tops of the houses, 
or standing out in open ground, this is one of the most magnificent of trees. Be- 
sides these grander displays of floral beauty, Port Louis is full of ornamental shrubs 
and hot-house plants, growing as freely as our lilacs and syringas. Double and 
single oleanders, and pink-leaved Dracenas, are in every garden. Superb Braughman- 


sias, with their white trumpet-shaped flowers, festoon the verandas. The Stephanotis 


112 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


climbs up the lattices, disputing for space with the passion-flower. The Lantana 
aurantiaca forms compact hedges, and elegant cactuses, presenting at times long masses 
of bright-yellow flowers, are cut off the tops and sides of walls with a sickle or 
bill-hook. 

A few miles south of Port Louis we come to the Black River region, one of 
the wildest parts of Mauritius. The little stream, represented on page 111, whose 
very clear waters flow over a pebbly bed, takes its rise in the central plateau of 
the island, and all the way to the sea is a series of little falls and shallows, a true 
New England brook. 

We have said that the coast of Mauritius is deeply indented with bays abound- 


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KARL. GRARDETE= 


Natural Bridge near Mahebourg. 


ing in picturesque effects. Much of this is due to the basalt formation of a large 
part of the island, which is cut away in sections, so to speak, along the coast by 
the action of the water, leaving odd-shaped cavities and projections. Of these, one 
of the most curious is a Natural Bridge, on the south coast, not far from Mahe- 
bourg, a town of some importance, founded in 1805. This is, as is seen in the illus- 
tration, a deep indentation in the coast, barred by a section of rock yet remain- 
ing in spite of the action of the waves. In the centre the rock makes a pier, 
and an arch extends to the mainland on either side. The top of the bridge, though 


irregular, affords safe footing, and it is said that an Englishman once crossed it on 
horseback. 


< “a 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 113 


CONSTANTINOPLE AND ASIATIC TURKEY. 


dawn of day. By degrees the pale mists of early morning scat- 
ter, and as ‘the anchor bites the sand of the Golden Horn, the 
traveller finds himself in the presence of a scene whose beauty 
can never be overstated. ‘The first sight of Constantinople equals 


one’s dreams, and surpasses one’s hopes. There are but few 


things in the world of which this can be said. 
To do justice to this picture and to the details that make it up, as 


ay day by day we explore and admire them, is, unhappily, impossible for us ; 


Ny 
Ne but we believe the following illustrations may suggest in some degree the 
ey splendors and the contrasts which meet us at every step. 
ae We shall commence with the ancient Palace, which has been the scene 
wr of so much history and tragedy, and to-day is unused by the sultan 
vANN save on state occasions, when some public ceremony takes place within its 
4 walls. i 
S : The Seraglio is like a city within a city. It is nearly a regular tri- 


angle, lying upon the side of a hill which it covers with its kiosques and gardens. Its 
white walls, crenellated and flanked with towers, are washed on one side by the waters 
of the Sea of Marmora, rapid as a torrent, and on the other by the calmer current of 
the Golden Horn. The enclosure measures three miles in circumference. It is entered 
from the square of St. Sophia by a magnificent gateway, which is no other than 
the Sublime Porte itself. This gateway is surmounted by a lofty Moorish arcade, 
supported by four columns, and bearing an inscription in letters of gold. 

Entering beneath these lofty arches, we find ourselves in an extensive court, 
laid out like a park. MHere gigantic palm-trees stand in groups upon the velvet 
turf; further on, avenues of cypress, interlaced with vines whose amber grapes hang 
in tempting clusters ; here and there, tufts of jasmine, stars of perfumed silver, shining 
amid the dark foliage; everywhere roses. The rose is the sultan’s flower. 

At intervals under the trees are squares filled with the vegetables of the kitchen 


114 - VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


garden; above them waye the tall heads of the Indian corn; and as a framework 
for the whole, the most luxuriant grass, cut by long and winding avenues, until at 
last the view ends with an irregular thicket of oaks and pines. : 

The Seraglio buildings lie in line, but the architect has known how to avoid 
anything like monotony in their construction. Long facades are interrupted by pavil- 
ions; unexpected projections break the outline just as it would become wearisome ; 
Persian kiosques, slender, light, aérial, vaporous, are united to one another by gal- 
leries, resting on sheaves of columns that expand into ogives and trefoils. Everything 
is varied ; even the roofs, which are so monotonous in Western architecture, here 
assume an endless diversity of outline. ‘To awnings of pagodas succeed cupolas 
sheathed in tin, and sending back in silvery reflections the rays of an Oriental sun; 
kiosques are coifed with Chinese hats ; flat balustraded roofs extend over the galle- 
ries; the dome, in every size and shape, is represented here up to the great cupola 
of the main structure, which bears aloft the double tip of its golden crescent. With 
all this, there is much delicate painting and fine carved wood-work ; arabesques that 
chase each other, changing from blue to green; balconies with iron leafage; and 
lattices before the harem windows, — making an ensemble of endless novelty and 
charm. — | 

The interior of the Seraglio hardly answers to the expectations raised by its ex- 
terior aspect. ‘There are vast apartments without character, great empty halls, whose 
only charm is in the wonderful water view from their windows. 

Two or three halls grouped in a kiosque, and devoted to the sultan’s bath, are 
of exceptional beauty. They are entirely of white marble, and decorated in Moor- 
ish style, with an exquisite refinement of taste. The delicate stone, cut like a jewel, 
spreads out in flowers and foliage, wreathing the capitals of the columns, and the 
lintels of the doors, with arabesques and festoons. The ceiling of the central hall is 
a marvel; small oval panes of glass, so richly colored that one takes them for thin 
layers of onyx and transparent agate, are set in a network of gold and silver, and 
transmit a light so soft and exquisite that it adds inexpressibly to the beauty of 
the apartment. Broad, luxurious divans extend along the walls, and here and there 
handsome yases decorate the porphyry etagéres. | 

One of the most dainty little structures of the Seraglio is the Sultan’s Fountain. 
This also belongs to the best epoch of Mahometan architecture. Its outer walls are 
of marble, decorated with exquisite sculpture; at intervals, upon a blue background, 
run arabesques of gold ; above the cornice, with its grotesque yet elegant mosaics, 
rises the pointed and projecting roof, which gives the whole work its suitable crown. 
Within, the water tinkles and sings all day long. It is cold and sparkling, and 
the passer-by has but to ask for a draught, and it will be given him by a seryant 


in the imperial livery, who is on duty there from sunrise to sunset. 


2h 


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SUMMER PARLOR IN THE SERAGLIO. 


116 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


Leaving behind us the Palace, it is but a few steps to the great Square, now 
known as the At-Meidan, anciently the Hippodrome. It is a large, irregular, open 
space, bounded on one side by the wall of Sultan Achmed’s Mosque, on the other 
by ruins or scattered buildings. In the centre is the Obelisk of Theodosius, the Ser- 
pentine Column, and the Walled Pyramid. These are all that remain of the glories 
of the ancient Byzantium. The Hippodrome of those days was a splendid sight when 
a crowd, brilliant in the richest dress and sparkling with gold and jewels, thronged 
its porticos, watching the golden cars, drawn by superb horses, scattering with rapid 
wheels the blue and vermilion powder with which the track was covered for the 
chariot-races. Besides this living population, the great square was filled with a 
crowd of marble figures of the rarest beauty. It was indeed an out-of-door museum, 
to which all the civilized world contributed of its best. Here stood the horses of 
Lysippus, which now adorn the Venetian temple of St. Mark; here were statues of 
Augustus and the other emperors, and countless heroes and divinities from the Greek 
Pantheon. All these, alas! are gone; and where the rude Turkish market is gath. 
ered, day by day, under its striped awnings, remain, as we have said; but three relics 
of the Byzantine time. 

Of these, the Obelisk is in the best preservation. It is a quadrangular monolith, 
of rose granite, sixty feet high, and about six in diameter at the base, diminishing 
gradually in size till it ends in a point at the apex. A single vertical line of sharp- 
cut hieroglyphics marks each of its four faces. It is of course an Hgyptian mon- 
ument, but probably not over three thousand years old, and was brought from 
Heliopolis. The column is separated from its pedestal by four bronze cubes of 
suitable size; the pedestal itself is decorated with rude sculpture, representing the 
1echanical contrivances by which the obelisk was raised to its present position, and 
bears an inscription telling that the work was done in thirty-two days. 

The Serpentine Column is a curious group of three serpents in an erect posi- 
tion, now not more than nine feet high, since their bronze heads were knocked off 
by Mussulman bigotry. This column was originally offered to Apollo, and stood in 
the Delphian temple, whence Constantine transported it to his new capital. 

Juastly, the Walled Pyramid deserves mention, erected at the extreme end of the 
Hippodrome, as the turning-point for the chariots in the race. It is now only a 
shapeless mass of rocks, but was originally all covered with plates of gilded bronze. 
One may fancy how superb this pyramid was in its time. 

And now from Constantinople we step forth, as through some majestic gateway, 
into the Hast, and Asia Minor allures us, with her history of so many thousand 
years, filled with the deeds of illustrious men, and the annals of famous nations. 

In Asia Minor it was that Sesostris, thirty centuries ago, hurled his armies 


against the Scythians, who had swarmed thither from the Asiatic steppes; here was 


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INTERIOR OF A KIOSQUE IN THE SERAGLIO. 


118 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


the scene where fable places the achievements of the Greek gods; Homer, who sang 
their epic, Thales the Wise, the shrewd -Atsop, Herodotus, Apelles the wonderful 
painter, were children of this soil. 

Here Greece found as it were a second life in her colonies, which, in splendor 
of arts and letters, were not a whit behind the mother country, and Rome gladly 
owned that here was the cradle of her infant years. 

This classic soil has been the battlefield of those colossal strifes between the 
East and West which mark the great epochs of history. Then, when the light of 
Christianity dawned upon the world in the adjacent Syrian country, Asia Minor 
gained new splendor from it. St. Paul and St. Barnabas here preached the Gospel ; 
St. John is said to have been bishop of Ephesus, and the lofty destinies of the 
Seven Churches of Asia were proclaimed by the Apocalyptic Angel. 

Diocletian, the last of the persecuting emperors, laid aside the imperial purple at 
Nicomedia; and not far from that town, Constantine yielded up his soul to God. 
The first Gicumenical Council was held at Niczea ; Ephesus and Chalcedon received 
in their turn the fathers of the Church; but soon, upon the ruins of Greek temples, 
and upon the ruins of Christian churches, new invaders planted the standard of - 
Mahomet. 

That no people upon earth might remain strangers to this land, that no renown 
might be lacking to it, hatred to the Crescent drew hither the nations of Western 
Europe; the armies of the Crusaders traversed it again and again. Peter the Her- 
mit has been here, Godfrey de Bouillon, King Louis of France, the Emperor Frederick 
Barbarossa. 

Remotest Asia, represented by Tamerlane, came in her turn to this rendezvous 
of the nations. No other country beneath the sun has such a history. The charm 
of its souvenirs ought, then, to call the traveller to it, even though it offered but 
little natural beauty to his observation. But this is not the case: its mountains, 
clad with their dense forests; its rivers and lakes, along whose shores lie the ruins 
of many an ancient city ; its coasts, bathed by the most poetic of seas, — give to the 
sites of Asia Minor a stamp of grandeur worthy of her historic renown. 

Such is the country we shall now hastily explore. Leaving Constantinople at 
sunset one day, the next day at sunrise we are in the Gulf of Nicomedia, the 
Astacus sinus of the ancients. Like the Bosphorus, it is framed in well-wooded 
hills, whose slopes were once crowned with villas of the Byzantine nobles ; to-day 
there are only a few scattered hamlets, of no importance save for their names, which 
are famous in history. 

At eight in the morning we drop anchor opposite Nicomedia. The city looks 
well from the water; it covers the side of a hill, — masses of verdure, cupolas, min- 


arets, showing here and there among groups of houses. Half-way up the hill is 


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120 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


the Sultan’s Kiosque, a recent building and of no importance; it recalls neither the 
palace of Diocletian, built here the same year in which the emperor signed the edict 


of persecution against the Christians, nor 


the one erected in the seventeenth century 
by Murad IV., of which the last vestiges 
have disappeared. Near it are the ship- 


yards which for centuries have produced 
those gallant barks dreaded of Christen- 


dom. Times have changed; they no longer 


prepare danger for Europe; and, indeed, 


to-day, the chief ship-building is carried on 
Nicomedia. at Constantinople. Still Nicomedia~ fur- 
nishes its contingent. Opposite to us is a frigate in process of construction. 

Of the ancient Nicomedia, capital of Bithynia, founded by Nicomedes I. at the end 
of the fourth “century before our era, and embellished by the younger Pliny, the Em- 
peror Trajan’s representative, and by Diocletian, there remains only a broken bit of 
wall, and a few other ruins scarce worthy of the traveller’s attention. Nicomedia, to- 
day, is the principal town of Kodja-Ili, one of the territorial divisions of the Ottoman 
Empire; it has fifteen or twenty thousand inhabitants, the Christian element being 
about one sixth of the whole population. | 

A two days’ journey on horseback brings us to our second point, the ancient 
city of Nicea. As we descend from the wooded plateau separating the valley of the 
Sangarius from that which is watered by Lake Ascanius, a succession of farms 


announce to us the neighborhood of a city; this is Nica. A thicket of tall trees 


hides it from view. No noise betrays its existence, and we are close under its ven-. 


erable walls before we have had time to prepare ourselves for this scene, which 
touches us so profoundly. 


There are few ruins in Asia Minor that appeal so strongly to the imagination 


as do these ruins of Nicza. ‘Travellers have not generally done them justice; rarely 


can the artist find ancient remains of so much importance framed in so charming a 
landscape ; nowhere will the poet feel such a wealth of melancholy interest. 

Built by Antigonus, a few years after the death of Alexander the Great, Nicsa 
would offer to the observer specimens of classic Greek art, had not time, earth- 
quakes, Scythian and other barbarous invasions, and the ravages occasioned by numerous 
sieges, entirely destroyed its primitive monuments. Fragments of them must be sought, 
built into more modern edifices, and especially into the city walls, for which they 
furnished abundant materials. Here, the shaft of a column forms the lintel of a 
gateway ; there, a Corinthian capital is brought to view by the falling of a portion 


of the sheathing; further on, entire sections of the rampart are covered with tumu- 


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THE AT-MEIDAN OR HIPPODROME. 


122 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


lary stones, or made of blocks of white marble, debris of pilasters and architraves, 
once portions of Greek temples. 

Rome, and, after Rome, Byzantium, almost everywhere in Asia Minor, covered 
the conquered land with a new stratum of architectural achievements. ‘The Nicean 
Theatre belongs to the time of the Younger Pliny, who, in his letters, gives Trajan 
the details of the construction of this edifice ; to-day it is a confused mass of arches 
and seats, constructed of massive hewn stones, through which struggles up into the 
light a wilderness of Inxuriant verdure. Two of the principal gates of the city are 
adorned with triumphal arches of white marble, erected in the time of the Emperor 
Adrian. The defensive works with which they were surrounded in the middle ages, 
and the raised level of the ground about them, materially impair their beauty. 

The Byzantine epoch is represented by remains much more numerous; of these 
the chief are the city walls, — curious as fortifications, and interesting in the light of 
the great strifes that many times went on around them. ‘They exist almost without 
a breach, and measure more than thirteen thousand feet in length. Their original 
construction goes back to the fourth century ; but they have undergone successive 


augmentations and changes, as is shown by many inscriptions. The wall is double, 


composed of the meniwm and the agger,—to use the Latin terms, — the latter of. 


less height than the former; and is flanked by two hundred and eighty-three towers. 
The mortar which forms the nucleus of this wall is covered with a sheathing of 
bricks laid horizontally, alternating with courses of hewn stone, making a sort of odd 
mosaic. The crenellation which surmounted it has been almost entirely destroyed. 

The Lower Empire endowed Niczea with many churches: one, which now serves 
the Greeks as a cathedral, seems to date from the twelfth century ; another, the Aghia- 
Sophia, has lost its cupola and its arches, but presents still an imposing aspect, and 
shows fragments of mosaics through the invading branches of the fig-trees which 
have overgrown the place. Some authors have sought to find here the scene of the 
First Council; this supposition may be true in relation to the Second Council of 
Nicwa (788); but it is well known that the first of these assemblies was held in 
the imperial palace, of which no trace now remains, the church of Aghia-Sophia 
offering, besides, architectural characteristics which fix its date in the sixth century, 
and give us reason to believe that it was built by Justinian. 

The sultans in their turn have taken no less pains than did the emperors in the 
decoration of Nica. The Seleucid of Iconium introduced here that charming archi- 
tecture, a mélange of Indian, Persian, and Byzantine elements, commonly called the 
Arab style. The first princes of the family of Osman had the good taste to respect 
its traditions, and it is like a glimpse of Bagdad, when, entering Nicza by the Gate 
of Lefké, we suddenly see glittering above the sombre masses of the other ruins, 
the enamelled faience minaret of the Yéchil-Djami, or Green Mosque, wherein the most 


brilliant tints, red, green, and blue, rival each other in vividness and lustre. 


Pe 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 123 


The mosque is really exquisite; the balustrades around the portico, the arabesques 
cut into the white marble of the fagade, can bear comparison with the most graceful 
creations of the Moors in Spain. One sighs to see the neglected condition of this 
beautiful structure. 

The Yechil-Djami is, however, still occupied for purposes of worship. It is at- 
tached to a religious school, where a dozen students are maintained. These poor 
boys occupy a row of little cells, ranged like a horse-shoe around the sides of an 
orchard, the mosque making the fourth side, and devote themselves to the study of 
the Koran with every appearance of the deepest melancholy. 

Near this building are the ruins of a large and handsome structure, surmounted 
with many cupolas, and made of brick and stone; this contained baths. It is well 
known that the Mahometan people attach great importance to establishments of this 
kind, and believe that it is impossible to make them too luxurious and splendid. 


Niczea. The Green Mosque. 


An inscription at the back of the portico indicates their foundress, Nilufer, daughter 
of Sultan Murad. The date is the year 790 of the Hegira, — 1388 of our Era. 

The Yéchil-Djami bears also, graven on its facade, the name of its founder, 
the famous Vizier Khayr-Eddin, the conqueror at Salonica. The mosque is older by 
ten years than the baths. 

From the midst of this debris of pagan, Christian, and Mahometan edifices, 
abounding in contrasts as it does, rise the pointed arches and balustrades and min- 
arets of ancient mosques. To describe them would be tiresome; but this wealth of 
details makes the grandeur of the ensemble of the picture presented by the ruins of 
Nicewa. Gladly would we recall the historic associations belonging to this ancient 
city, from the time of Constantine and the First Council down to the period of the 
Crusaders, but space forbids. Nicwa, to-day, is a little city of two thousand inhab- 
itants, mostly Christians. Orchards and gardens grow close around its walls on the 
east and north, and the leakage of the ancient aqueducts, which bring abundant water 
from the mountains, makes that side of the town a swamp, and renders Nicza one 


of the cities of Asia Minor most habitually ravaged by fever. 


124 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


Again, a two days’ journey on horseback, and about sunset, one evening in Sep- 
tember, we come in sight of Broussa, —a wreath of minarets and cupolas hung upon 
the side of Mount Olympus. ‘The town is but fifteen miles from the seaport of Mon- 
dania, whence runs a regular line of steamers to Constantinople, and many visitors 
to the ‘Turkish capital make the excursion to Broussa a part of their programme. 
It offers the attraction of a good hotel, and of hot springs highly esteemed as a 
remedial agency, while the manufacture of silk draws thither many Greek merchants, 
who make the town their home for a large part of the year. 

Broussa is the most beautiful city of Asia Minor. Sheltered on the north by 
the craggy, wooded heights of Olympus, which furnish it with abundant water, it 
overlooks a wide and fertile valley; in summer its heat is tempered by mountain 


and sea breezes; a belt of great trees — cypress, plantain, poplars, chestnuts — surrounds 


Broussa. Sultan Bajazet’s Mosque. 


it, stretching away, as far as the eye can see, to meet the mulberry trees which fill 


the valley,—entering the city, to unite with the groves that cluster around each 


mosque. 

Next to the three holy cities, Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem, Broussa claims 
the veneration of the faithful Mahometan, for it has been the scene of some of. the 
most memorable struggles of Islam. Here rest the mortal remains of their earliest 
sultans, of their bravest warriors, of dervishes-and santons, most illustrious of their 
saints. ‘There are nearly six hundred tombs of princes and heroes within the walls 
of this little city, and, they say, as many mosques, oratories, sepulchral chapels, and 
convents, as there are days in the year. Most of these monuments date from the 
fifteenth century ; many are defaced and ruinous, but by their multitude and variety 


they all aid in giving Broussa an air of grandeur. 


. 


a 
- ~ 
a) 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 125 


The city lies, for a length of three miles, along a series of hillocks at the base 
of Olympus; the highest of these hillocks, girt with strong walls and flanked with 
square towers, bears on its top the city properly so called, the ancient town, the 
citadel. All the others are but a series of suburbs. But at Broussa, as in many 


other warlike places transformed into rich capitals, the accessory has become the 


Huy 


= 


Sardis. Ruins of a Church. 


principal. The narrow limits of the citadel contain a few crowded streets where 
the Turks of the old school remain sheltered as in an ark of safety. <A little lower 
down, spreads out, free from limitation, the modern city, whose undulating surface is 
circumscribed only by a wall of verdure. 

Five great mosques adorn the city, two in the inner enclosure, and three in the 


suburbs, of which the one represented on the preceding page, lies on the east, sur- 


rounded by gigantic plantain and cypress trees. Around these mosques, among the 


126 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


trees, are kiosques — square, round, and octagonal — surmounted by cupolas, and often 
sumptuously decorated. These are turbehs, or mortuary chapels, enclosing the remains 
of sultans, their wives and children, and a few illustrious personages not akin to 
royalty. The interior arrangement of these turbehs is the same in all cases. In the 
centre of the hall, a raised platform adorned with precious marbles, faience, and 
woollen stuffs, supports the coffin, wrapped in camel’s-hair shawls, and upon it are 
placed the turbans and other insignia belonging to the dead. Long wax candles in 
elegant candlesticks, are placed in rows around these catafalques. 

The prosperity of the province of Broussa rests mainly upon the exportation of | 
silk. With few exceptions the silk-worms are distributed in small lots among the peas- 
antry, but the silk-winding establishments are all within the limits of the town, and 
belong to Europeans — French, Italians, Germans, and Swiss. Five thousand workmen 
are employed, and the annual production amounts to some three or four million dollars. 

Across two mountain ridges, westward, not far from the sea, lie the ruins of Sar- 
dis, (see page 125.) Taken by storm, burned, pillaged seven times at least by the 
Scythians, Persians, Greeks, Goths, and Saracens, shaken to its foundations by the great 
earthquake which, in the reign of Tiberius, desolated all Asia Minor, the Lydian capital 
has now no other inhabitants than a few wandering Yourouks, who pitch their tents in 
the midst of this desolation. 

Sardis was once the capital of the great satrapy of Asia Minor, and had its share 
in all the historical events of its time. Xerxes gathered his army here when meditat- 
ing the invasion of Greece; Cyrus here organized that expedition which Xenophon 
has made immortal; Alexander came hither after the battle of the Granicus; Scipio, 
probably, after that of Magnesia ; and, finally, Frederick Barbarossa saw Sardis already 
in ruins before—less fortunate than Alexander —he came to the fatal Cydnus. 

From Sardis it is a long day’s journey on horseback to Smyrna, through a country 
in part under cultivation and partly overgrown with thickets of rose-laurel. All along. 
the road we meet files of camels, testifying that we are approaching the great business 
centre of Asia Minor. After having forded a river, near the ruins of an ancient 
bridge, we stop at a café, and leaving the rest of our party to go on directly to 
Smyrna, we take a guide and make our way towards the mountains lying eastward, 
with the intention of visiting the famous bas-relief, cut upon one of the rocks in 
the valley of Kara-Bell, which, according to Herodotus, represents Sesostris the Con- 
queror. | 

Our horses made good time, but the road was long, and it was nearly sunset 
when we reached the spot. Our guide was unable to find the narrow gorge where 
the bas-relief is situated, but a peasant conducted us to the place, and the last rays 
of the sun were made available for the photograph from which the illustration (page 


127) is reproduced. The reader will observe that the calcareous rock has undergone 


SCENES [IN MANY LANDS. 127 


the action of time: the breast of the warrior no longer bears that inscription to whose 
existence Herodotus testified ; the hieroglyphics cut in the rock between the head of 
this personage and the top of his spear are scarcely now to be perceived. 

The general effect and all the details of this bas-relief correspond exactly to 
what Herodotus describes, with the sole exception that the spear is in the left hand 


and the bow in the right, contradicting the words of the great historian. It cannot 


fe CAN) 


Bas-relief of Sesostris. 


be doubted, however, that he referred to this bas-relief of Kara-Bell ; but was he not 
mistaken in attributing it to Sesostris? Is it not more probably an Assyrian mon- 
ument? Upon this point, travellers disagree, and we shall not assume to decide the 
question. 


At eleven o’clock the some evening we entered Smyrna, and the following day 


128 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


we went by rail to Ephesus. This railway from Smyrna to Aidin is under English 
management, and, running through a beautiful country and at a good rate of speed, 
furnishes a delightful contrast to our recent methods of locomotion. Fifty miles, per- 
formed in an hour and a quarter, brought us to Aya-Slouk, a Mahometan city, built 
out. of the ruins of Ephesus, and now itself in ruins. 

Half a mile from the station a rounded hillock rises in the midst of the valley; 
this is Mount Prion, from the top of which we overlook the ancient city. How 
many memories awaken, as we look from the mountains to the sea, over this vast 
extent covered with the debris of a city, one of the most famous, most flourishing 
and populous of antiquity! In crossing Asia Minor, at every step we are brought 
face to face with some great historic epoch. Here, in the metropolis of Ionia, we 


recall those sons of Attica, transplanted to Asiatic soil, warriors, philosophers, poets, 


Ephesus. 


artists, men of commercial activity, whose brilliant qualities are still the object of our 
admiration. 

As we look to see what is left of Ephesus, we find that, by reason of revolu- 
tions and earthquakes, all things are confused and unsettled. From the day when the 
Amazons, those fabulous heroines, laid the first foundations of the city, it has been 
seven times destroyed and rebuilt, and each time its site has varied. Upon the crest 
of Mount Corissus, bordering the plain on the north, we. still find an important por- 
tion of the walls constructed by Lysippus at the end of the third century before 
our era. A tower, which doubtless originally made part of this wall, has long been 
known as “St. Paul’s Prison.” The designation arises from some pious tradition, but 
no historic document substantiates it. This, with the piers of the harbor, now lost 


in a marsh, is all that remains to Ephesus of the Greek epoch; for the.Temple of 


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130 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS.- 


Diana, twice built and twice destroyed, has perished so completely that no vestige 
is left to tell where once it stood. 

The other ruins are of Roman origin. There are yet left the broken walls of 
the Agora, a gymnasium whose massive arches present an air of grandeur, the Stadium, 
and the great Amphitheatre. 

From Smyrna, a line of steamers runs to Beyrout, stopping at the larger islands 
on the way. <A few hours’ sail brought us to Rhodes, the most attractive spot in 
all the Archipelago. It is the Island of Roses, as its Greek name signifies, and its 
beauty won also from the ancients another flattering designation, “'Telchinis,” or the 
Enchantress. But, after all, its history stands for more than all the wealth of its 
natural loveliness. | 

Colonized first by the Phoenicians, and afterwards by the Greeks, it was a land 
of bold sailors, whose alliance was sought in turn by all the great and powerful 
nations of antiquity. By turns they sided with one or another, as their own interest 
dictated, and steadily grew in importance and culture. A single one of their works 
of art has been preserved to us,—the bronze horses of St. Mark, in Venice, origi- 
nally a gift from the little state to Alexander, which have been transported succes- 
sively to Corinth, to Constantinople, to Venice, to Paris for a few years, and then 
to Venice again. . 

Up to the time of Vespasian the “ Rose-island” had maintained its independence ; 
but this emperor, early in the Christian era, seized it, and forming a maritime proy- 
ince out of the neighboring islands, placed Rhodes at the head, and united it to the 
Roman Empire. Falling to the share of the Hastern emperors, the island by de: 
_ grees relaxed in its obedience to so distant an authority, and was more or less sub 
jected by Turkish corsairs, who ravaged it from the neighboring mainland. 

Rhodes was thus situated when the Knights of St. John found themselves finally 
expelled from Palestine, and looked about them for a new and permanent home. The 
Grand Master of the Order attempted to negotiate for the purchase of the island, but 
the Emperor Paleologus Andronicus IJ. refused to listen, and the Grand Master with 
his knights seized by violence what had been denied to their peaceful offers. In 
August, 1310, they made the conquest of the island, and established themselves on 
it. In December, 1502, they were obliged to capitulate to the Turks, after a six 
months’ siege, and abandoned forever. their beautiful abode. 

Thus, for two centuries, the iskand of Rhodes was a centre of Christian civili- 
zation; churches and hospitals, and forts and towers, rose on every hand; the island 
received an imprint of military and religious grandeur which it preserves to this day, 
and it is for the sake of these historic souvenirs that we have not hesitated to call 
it the most attractive spot in the Eastern Mediterranean. : 


As we approach it from the east, the island presents itself as a triangle, whose 


oe 


= 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 131 


base is the sea, and whose apex is the summit of the hill upon which the city lies. 
Upon this summit, and in the place where once stood the spire of St. John, rises 
a little white minaret, resting on a broad base of masonry, square, discolored by time, 
as on a socle far too large for it. This is all that remains of the tower of the 
cathedral, mutilated by Sultan Soliman’s cannon-balls. 

The base of the triangle is extremely imposing. A line of crenellated walls, 
pierced with loop-holes and embrasures, extends from east to west, varied by towers, 


round or square, massive or graceful, proudly showing the blackened bays through 


Mihi} 


ll will ill 


Gate of the Grand Master’s Palace. 


which once thundered the defiant cannon of St. John. To the two extremities of 
this harbor defence are joined the city walls, which, ascending the hill on the west, 
eross the ridge, and come down on the east, altogether forming a solid cuirass, no 
flaw in which the Turks could ever have found. 

All these crenellated walls, these towers and defensive works, bear, perfectly well 
preserved and recognizable, armorial insignia which prove their construction due to 
the early chiefs of the Order of St. John. By the great number of these escutch- 
eons, thus cut and stamped into the wails, we see that every one of the Grand 
Masters was ambitious to add to the decoration or the defence of their beautiful 


city. 


132 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


But now this is asilent seaport. The crumbling walls which surround it have 
been deprived of their brave garrison. The whole city seems to lie asleep. Only 
the soft summer breeze blows over it, and steals their perfume from the flowers of 
this enchantress isle. Can it be the same that was once so mighty a naval power 
in the days of Villeneuve and d’Aubusson? Is this the stronghold that used to ring 
with military fanfares, and tremble responsive to the thousand-mouthed roar of its 
bold cannon? 

For more than three hundred and fifty years, the Turks have been masters in 


al AAA AAA () 


Church of our Lady of Victory. 


Rhodes. Grass grows in the middle of the streets, and the footpath across the fields 
is lost in the luxuriant vegetation that crowds upon it. But the moss covers great 
paving-stones of palaces; behind this ivy are concealed illustrious escutcheons; through 
this embrasure, where the long cannon bearing the fleur-de-lis of France seems to 
watch for an enemy who shall never come, you can look out upon peaceful meadows 
and slopes, covered with wild tulips, and gay with the narcissus and the rose. 
Amid the flowers rise dwarf marble columns, tombs of Soliman’s warriors. 

From afar we can see—for the Turks have taken pains to whiten it, as if to 
make it more clearly visible—the great Tower of St. Michael, the Mediterranean 


waves breaking in foam at its feet. The harbor is not large; but little space was 


SCENES [IN MANY LANDS. 133 


needed at home for the ships belonging to the Order, forever denied repose by the 
interests of religion and Christian. Europe. 

Making the tour of these formidable ramparts, the desolation of the scene grows 
painful. The wheels of the carriages are sunken deep into the earth and overgrown 
with wild vegetation; the cannon are eaten with rust. Within the city, one is struck by 
the martial aspect it still presents in spite of the kiosques and the Turkish minarets 
which have striven in vain to disfigure it. Among the most important buildings we 
find im the upper part of the city the high walls of a palace. Its great gate, flanked 


by two towers, and surmounted by two coats of arms, recalls the Grand Master 


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Priory of France. 


Helion de Villeneuve, one of their chiefs to whom the Order owed many important 


works. The building has served as a military hospital, and even as a state’s prison, 


without losing all its early splendor. 
Near by are the ruins of a church (see page 132) which commemorates the heroic 


defence of Rhodes by d’Aubusson. It was built close to that part of the wall where 
once took place a fierce struggle resulting in the retreat of the Turks; and in 1522, 
when the Ottoman invaders again, and this time successfully, besieged the city, they 
bombarded this church with special fury, and reduced it to its present condition. 
In the famous Street of the Knights, not far below the old cathedral, we come 


154 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


to the most beautiful and interesting of all the buildings in Rhodes. It is an edi- 
fice crenellated like a citadel, with turrets along the top of the wall. Broad, lofty 
windows, framed in delicately carved mouldings, open from the fagade, and announce 
a noble dwelling. This was once the house of the French grand prior. Three dig- 
nitaries of this high rank successively occupied it, if we may believe the shields and 
dates which are placed between the windows and above the elegant arched door. This 
palace, in perfect preservation, has been appropriated as the residence of a Turkish 
dignitary. Its fagade is disfigured by little wooden balconies and lattices, reducing 


the great, wide-open windows, which became a knightly life sans peur et sans 


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Jewish Street. - 


reproche, to the proportions of the Oriental peep-hole. Still, we owe our gratitude to 
the present proprietor, who has spared —little as he must value the memory of the 
early inmates — these brilliant coats of arms, whereby the palace preserves inviolate a 
remnant of its ancient splendor. . 
Continuing our way down the hill, we come upon the Jewish quarter, where a 
wide street, and the armorial bearings upon many of the houses, attest the former 
residence of the knights. Here, at every step, one sees enormous balls of marble 
or granite, half buried in the soil, or ranged like boundary marks against the houses. 


They were projectiles, in their time, thrown from those basilisks, or great mortars two 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 135 


and three feet in diameter, which the Turks used during the siege when their attack 
was hottest against this part of the town. 

Here we find ourselves again in the neighborhood of the aie and its imposing 
ine of high and solid walls. Many towers rise from these fortifications which the 
tide laves, and beneath which the galleys of the Order sought their moorings again 
after many a wild cruise in distant waters against the Infidel. A fine old building, 
with a row of arched windows, in this part of the town, is yet called the Knights’ 


Barracks. It is roofless, but in the lower story vagrant Turks make their abode, 


The Knights’ Barracks. 


and carry on a desultory housekeeping, quite unabashed by the memory of their chival- 
rous predecessors. 

In the sunset we sailed away from Rhodes, taking the Austrian steamer for 
Jaffa, the nearest seaport to Jerusalem. 
: So many illustrations exist, and so minute descriptions have been given of the 
Holy Places of the Christian faith in Jerusalem, that we shall offer to our readers 
more novelty in presenting them instead with a picture of the Mosque of Omar, 
which is, after Mecca and Medina, the most sacred place on earth to the followers of 


Mohammed. 
Seventy thousand angels, according to the poetic imagination of the Orientals, 


136 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


guard this mosque, built on the site of Solomon’s temple ; but to common eyes it 
seems to be in the charge of two hundred negroes, whose houses, situated around the 
esplanade, are somewhat harmful to the general effect. The mosque itself is a great 
octagonal building, of which each side is over sixty feet in length, and is pierced by 
seven arched windows. It is crowned by a dome, covered with lead and surmounted 
by a crescent, and presents a most impressive appearance, especially when the sun- 
light strikes upon the colored mosaics which form a portion of its walls. 

Entering the mosque by one of its four gates, we find ourselves for the moment 
almost in darkness; the daylight can scarcely make its way through the colored glass 
of the windows; but by degrees the eye becomes accustomed to the obscurity, and 
finds delight in the rich simplicity of the place. Both the floor and walls consist of 
gray or white marble ; twenty-eight columns of brown marble form a concentric nave, 
while a second row of sixteen columns supports the dome covered with gilded ara- 
besques. Hxactly under this dome is the sacred rock, sixty feet long and fifty broad, 
believed to be the one on which Jacob rested his head when he had the vision at 
Beth-el; it is separated from the rest of the mosque by a wooden balustrade of 
elegant workmanship, and is, besides, sheltered by a Ahymé of red satin, in memory 
of the tent given by the Lord to Adam, when, after a hundred years’ separation, 
our first father found Eve again upon a mountain near Mecca. This rock is precious 
to the faithful Mussulman, not merely on account of its association with the patri- 
arch Jacob, but also because he firmly believes that a cavity on its surface is the 
imprint of Enoch’s foot at the moment of his departure for heaven, and further, that 
five other indentations on it are the marks of the angel Gabriel’s hand. When 
Mahomet, they say, was carried up into heayen, this rock wished to follow him, but 
was held in place by the angel, who left the imprint of his fingers upon it. 

Hight steps lead down into the lower chamber of the mosque, which has the 
sacred stone for its ceiling. On this side the stone is called, in Arabic, the 
Tongue,” in memory of the salutations it. exchanged with the Kalif Omar. The 
latter, on discovering Jacob’s pillow among the ruins on Mount Moriah, exclaimed 
in his delight, “Hs selam aleik !” (Blessings upon thee!) and the rock immediately 
replied, “ Aleik esselam !” (Upon thee, blessings!) All around this room, which is 
nearly circular in form, are the praying-places of Abraham, of David, of Solomon, 
and of Khader; for all the prophets, from the beginning of the world, have recited 
their devotions here. 

Returning to the temple above, we make the tour of the gallery, beginning on 
the north side. There is a great pulpit, used specially on Fridays; a desk of wood, 
bearing a superb copy of the Koran more than three feet in length, said to have 
belonged to the Kalif Omar; a buckler used by Hanezé, the companion of the Prophet; 


the standard of Omar, and David’s mace. Further on, a curiously shaped stone attracts 


WATVSNYar ‘UVNO AHO ANSOSONW 


\ 


ak 


| 


! 
l 


ae in 
wore 


use 
Su eet 


PUA 


WYO) —= ee 
=I ih) ] ——— = ——_ = 


a ! 


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; 
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/ 
\ 
{ 
( | 
\ 
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138 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


attention ; it is the saddle of El Boraq, the steed of the angel Gabriel. Outside 
the mosque, they show us the place where this horse was fastened while the Prophet 
waited to recite his last prayer before being taken up into heayen. 

The temperature of Jerusalem varies according to the seasons. In winter, it 
sometimes falls as low as the freezing-point, while in summer the heat is usually 
extreme. Selecting a cloudy day, we make an excursion outside the walls. On the 
south lies the valley of Hinnom, where sacrifices were offered to Moloch ; the Hill of 


Evil Counsel overhangs it on the right. A little further on are the ruins of an ancient 


Aceldama. 


church dating from the Crusades; and further yet, the Aceldama, with its great gloomy 
olive-trees. | 

Wherever the Arabs have been, there we find their most exquisite work lay- 
ished upon baths and fountains. Nothing could be imagined more beautiful than the 
Arab fountain in a narrow street in Jerusalem, which we passed on the last day of 
our stay there, and with whose graceful arch and delicate carving we close the brief 
list of our illustrations of the Holy City. 

The traveller in Asia Minor will have missed a region of the grandest scenery 
if he fail to explore the Taurus, a chain of mountains occupying the country anciently 


known as Cilicia, 


SS SN = 


ip 


Poe 


=, 


ee 

<[as {gee = 

a IS 
- 7 

~~ ~. a 


ARAB FOUNTAIN. 


aS = ——— = = Ss 
———S— S= = = = 
= = SSNS ———— —— 
——— —_ 
== ———— Se = = 
——== : = = == = SS 
¥ =e) == = E Yah HN 
ANY > == = SS os oi 
oF = yy i = z 
= SES —_— 


140 , VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


—=— 


—— 


= =— 


————— 


ne 


—— = 
——$—— 


S=—— 
S55 


SS —>, 
———— 

AAD 

ANN = 


g\se 


Cascade in the Taurus. 


The Taurus has been famous from all antiquity: tradition makes it the home of 
gods and heroes; it is full of the ruins of an ancient civilization, which perished 
completely under the invasion of the barbarous nomads of Central Asia. Among 
these mountains, formerly peopled by so many different nations, to-day there are only 
little hamlets of poor Turkomans, and encampments of Yourouks, whose existence is 
rather that of the brigand than of the shepherd. 


ite ema 


ie, 5 


‘IHMOHSVAS ‘GCNOZISAXYNL 


ane 


TM 


a, = 


ipa 


lj HI i 


142 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


The illustration, page 140, represents one of the many cascades with which this 
region abounds. A special interest is attached to this place, since near here the 
Crusaders are believed to have encamped on their way to Palestine, and the ruins 
of a chateau in the immediate neighborhood are described by Albert of Aix, who 
calls it the Castle of Butrentum. 

With these glimpses of the south of Asia Minor, we now turn to the northern 
provinces, beginning with Trebizond, which lies along the south-eastern shore of the 
Black Sea. There is now a weekly line of steamers from Constantinople to the city 
of Trebizond, and Western influences are largely at work here, effacing in some degree 
Oriental costumes and Oriental manners. 

The city, built like an amphitheatre along the sea-shore, is extremely picturesque 


as we approach by water. ‘There is a line of buildings of varied outline, all painted 


Fortifications of Trebizond. 


in bright colors, and behind them, rising and retreating up the hill, are others in 
equal variety, scattered among thick clumps of fruit-trees with dark-green foliage, 
while here and there a slender white minaret stands up clear and sharply cut against 
the blue background of the sky. The mosques themselyes, about forty in number, 
are not very remarkable, and, except the Mosque of Saint Sophia, a little distance out 
of town, the only really interesting one is a transformed Byzantine church, of which 
the exterior is in part covered with mosaics. 

The town divides itself into the Turkish and the Christian quarters. The for- 
mer occupies the western half of Trebizond, and is shut in by a line of high walls, 
defended by solid towers. These walls have a rocky foundation, and beneath them 
are great ravines overgrown with luxuriant vegetation. The ivy climbs over the gates, : 
and here and there hides from our sight part of the Greek inscription which. tells 


of an earlier time, and a people long since passed away. 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 143 


The Christian quarter is not very attractive, from an architectural point of view. 
Here, however, we find the principal bazaar, and after some little experience, learn 
what treasures may be discovered in it. The richest carpets of Persia, Khorassan, 
and Smyrna, the woollen and silk stuffs of Aleppo, Diarbekir, and Broussa, the finest 
filigree-work in silver, precious stones of great value, rare and curious weapons, ancient 
coins, may be bought — and sometimes at prices not too high — by him who has learned 
the craft and mystery of Oriental bargaining. 

Passing through the bazaar, we emerge into a little open square by the shore, 
where, on market-days, one sees much that is amusing and characteristic. There, on 
a ruimous pier, said to have been constructed by the Genoese, the caiques and sandals 
of all the neighboring coast land their various merchandise. Boats from Platana and 
Surmineh bring loads of fruit and vegetables, wood and cereals. Others are taking 
on board the rude pottery made in such quantities at Trebizond. Others bring troops 
of peasants, whose costumes enliven the picture. The little square is all alive with 
a gay and bustling crowd. 

So, too, is the bazaar itself, on certain days in the week, when the people of 
the neighboring mountains come down to sell their cattle and the produce of their 
gardens. All that they can they bring upon their shoulders, but the heavier burdens 
must be loaded upon donkeys and horses, or in carts drawn by oxen and _ buffaloes. 
This produce they exchange for woollen stuffs, fire-arms, and various small articles of 
daily use. Of all these scenes, the most curious is_ that when we encounter a long 
caravan of camels, horses, or mules, arriving from the interior with bales of cotton 
to be deposited ‘in some khan, or in the storehouse of some rich merchant. The 
tumult and confusion, especially the noise, is indescribable; the cries of the drivers 
mingle with the shrieks of the passers-by, half crushed in the narrow lanes, and of 
the tradesmen whose awnings are carried away on the top of some animal’s load ; 
and, over all, the angry growl of the camels, a sound most peculiar and distressing. 

The population of Trebizond is estimated at forty thousand inhabitants, and con- 
sists of Turks, Persians, Armenians of the Gregorian and Latin confessions, Ortho- 
dox Greeks, twenty or more Huropean families, and a floating population of muleteers, 
hamals or Turkish porters, and Kurds. We may say that representatives of every 
Oriental people are found here, and each man in his national costume. The Turks 
are mostly shopkeepers, fishermen, and public officials. The two former classes are 
faithful observers of the law of Mahomet; the latter have gone astray from the tradi- 
tions of their fathers: they no longer wear the old costume, they drink brandy to 
_ intoxication, and they have lost the politeness and good-humor which distinguish the 
true Mussulman. 

The Persians are merchants on a larger scale, and also very clever artisans; their 


natural subtilty and finesse, their talent for business and refinement of manners, bring 


144 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


them to fortune rapidly. They are superstitious and practise minutely the details of 
their religion. Followers of Ali, they have many quarrels with the Turks, who accept 
the authority of Omar; more polite than the Turks with strangers, they yet allow 
themselves in conversation to extol their own country above all the world; wherever 
they go they preserve their national costume, of silk or some rougher material, ac- 


cording to the class to which each man belongs, but always made in the same fashion. 


Erzeroum. Street Scene. 


The Armenians are gentle and peaceable; their manners retain a stamp of the 
patriarchal days, the children never being allowed to sit in the presence of their 
parents, and young girls waiting at table upon their relations and the guests of the 
house. The Armenians, and also the Greek population, are far more attached to 


Russia than to the Porte; it would seem that this preference must be founded on 


' Ata 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 145 


religious sympathy, since they could in no way obtain advantage from a change of 
masters. 

From Trebizond, a mountain journey — whose duration varies from seven to twelve 
days, according to the weather and the time of year—brings us to Erzeroum. At 
eight hours’ distance from the city we see it clearly,—so pure is the atmosphere of 


this plateau, —a strange and characteristic silhouette done in sepia against the light- 


Erzeroum. ‘Tehifté Minaret. 


gray background of the hills. From these hills many rivulets run down, and make 
their way through the city in every direction, thus requiring a great number of 
bridges, and giving a marked peculiarity to the town. Furthermore, Erzeroum is 
eminently Oriental in its appearance; the streets in the Mohammedan part of the city 


are lined with walls of grayish tint, pierced by small and infrequent apertures, which 


146 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


serve as windows. In the Christian quarter, many houses have a second story pro- 
jecting over the street, supported by posts, sometimes ornamented with carvings; and 
the roof forms a sort of awning, sheltering it all from the rain and sun. 

Most of the houses, especially those which have but a single story, are lighted 
only by an opening in the roof, over which is placed a pyramid of oiled paper, 
which lets in the daylight, but keeps out the rain. ‘The flat roofs themselves, covered 
with a thick layer of earth, become in spring real fields where sheep and goats are 
pastured, and, later in the season, are used as drying-places for fuel. In Erzeroum 
there are no paved streets; consequently, the dust in summer is intolerable, and in 
winter they are nothing better than quagmires. | 

The mosques are very numerous; one, the Ouloud-Djami, situated on the highest 
ground in the city, and now used as an arsenal and powder-house, is really inter- 
esting. Its chief gate is that of the Tchifté Minaret, represented on page 145. The 
mosque itself seems to be of Arab architecture, but probably its builders were Per- 
sian workmen; for, beside its ornamentation of geometrical designs, there are figures of 
animals, serpents’ heads, and a double-headed eagle on a cartouche in relief, near the 
minaret; the gate itself is surmounted by two towers of varnished brick, and the 
base is decorated with a mosaic of blue, green, and red faience. 

With Erzeroum we take our leave of the north-eastern part of Asia Minor, 
crossing the country to Mosul, whence we have access to that land of mystery and 
eld, “far-off Chaldea, and Babylon the Great.” 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 147 


by) i ae 
> cone 


wi it HELIUM n 
(i | 


ty 


\ 


hi We 


at a point on the eastern 


= es ‘A 
i ll we 
my iy thy l ae 
MTA 
Arai il yal ! 
La ct — i ae 
3 mn a = 
ae Zeit We i Ww 72 i 
oS i ot at “al i rT ia fi — e h 
ah | % 
Th i) “il ih / " | igi 
| | Th a, i 
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th 
Hi s 2 
Wee 
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Seas g 
a at pas WES WS SEES SE TPFIERING TON 
YEVEH AND BAB 
NINEVE i ABYLON. 
——086200—_ 


#AT the head of the great Mesopotamian plain, not far from 


the frontiers of Kurdistan, lies Mosul, a third-rate Turk- 
ish city, remote from Constantinople, and regarded as a 
_ place of exile by whatever luckless effendi is ordered 
the 


It is scarcely to 


thither to represent the Sultan’s authority in this, 
most eastern portion of his domains. 
be supposed that a French consul would find such a place 
of residence any. more agreeable; and it was, perhaps, due 
to his utter lack of occupation upon the surface of the 
earth, that M. Botta, in 1842, began to attack with energy 
certain mounds in the neighborhood of the modern city, 
which it was believed might conceal remains of the great 
Assyrian capital, destroyed seven centuries before the 
Christian era. 

A vague tradition, handed. down from antiquity, has 
always indicated the location of the ancient city of Ninus 


shore of the Tigris, very nearly opposite Mosul. Jonah’s 


Tomb, a Mohammedan structure standing on a hill, and perpetuating the. Biblical mention 


of that prophet’s visit, is another form of the same tradition. 


And yet nothing in the 


148 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


appearance of the place suggested the former existence of a great capital: there were 
no ruins, no vestiges of ancient buildings; there was nothing but an arid plain, varied 
by low hillocks here and there. Such is the impression all early travellers give us 
of the spot. 3 

No one of these travellers was in a position to dig into these hillocks, in search 
of possible hidden treasure. Mr. James Rich, fifty years ago the British resident 
at Bagdad, was, up to 1842, the only person who had made any investigations, and 
his efforts resulted merely in obtaining some stones and bricks bearing cuneiform in- 
scriptions, which he bought from the Arabs and sent home, where they formed the 
nucleus of the Assyrian Collection of the British Museum. ‘This, however, was suf- 
ficient to excite public attention in England and in France, and shortly after His 
arrival in Mosul, M. Botta commenced his explorations, by digging into a_ hillock 
about fifteen minutes distant from the river-bank. The results obtained were not 
very satisfactory; but a peasant, who saw the laborers at work, besought them to 
come to his village, ten miles distant towards the north-east, where, he maintained, 
much better and more abundant fragments of ancient sculpture could be found. With 
a good deal of distrust in these promises, M. Botta sent three or four of his men 
to the place designated, the village of Khorsabad, since become so famous. It was 
merely a little group of some fifty houses, on a low eminence forty feet above the 
plain, and inhabited by Kurds crossed with Arab blood. ‘The very shape of this 
hillock proved it artificial, and the discovery of bricks with cuneiform inscriptions, 
and of great hewn stones on a level with the ground, and now serving as pave- 
ment to some of the houses, at once confirmed the hopes of the explorers. M. Botta 
soon arrived in person, and set all his men at work. 

Such is the point of departure of the magnificent discoveries which have taken 
so important a place in the scientific history of our epoch. 

A few hours’ work brought to light a head,—a superb head, with straight, 
pure profile, — an unmistakable antique. One may fancy the excitement of the moment, 
as the consul asked himself, “Is this all, or is this but the beginning?” They plied 
their picks vigorously; the stone grew larger and larger, a body was added to the 
head; other figures were brought to light; it was a series of bas-reliefs; it was the 
wall of some vast edifice! One hall after another was excavated, the walls all coy- 
ered with carvings and inscriptions,—with hunting scenes and war scenes, with 
colossal symbolic figures,—in a word, it was nothing less than a palace,—a great 
royal habitation. Carbonized beams and blackened walls betrayed that the flames had 
done their work here. The fury of that war which overthrew the last Assyrian 
dynasty, and the devastating hand of the victorious enemy, had left their traces 
everywhere. 


By a fortunate chance, the village people of Khorsabad were quite willing to 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 149 


sell out and move down into the plain, nearer the springs from which they obtain 
their supply of water; and the difficulty of finding laborers who would brave the 
terrors of this under-world, with its demon sculpture so frightful to the Mussulman, 
was met by another equally fortuitous circumstance. Certain mountaineers of Chris- 
tian faith, persecuted and threatened with destruction by neighboring Kurds, had but 
lately come in multitudes to seek assistance in Mosul. These men M. Botta found 
ready and eager to accept his pay, and by their hands the work was carried on. 

Since this beginning, the published discoveries of Rawlinson and Layard have 
brought to our very doors the marvels of Assyrian art and architecture. The myste- 
rious cuneiform inscriptions have been read, and we have the message which those 
early people meant for us when they left their history “graven in the rock forever.” 

No single illustration of the art of this early people is more truly typical than 
the Winged Bull, which re- 


curs everywhere, especially 


NY 
guarding on either side the ny 
great doors of the palace. 


These figures are some- 


times eighteen fect high, and [Ogio yee 
executed in high relief, hay- xe ‘ Sy Ze et —>> 


ing a projection of more than 
three feet. The aspect of 
this minotaur, his haughty 


neck surmounted by a human 


N 
iN 
ANY 


N 
a 


np 
YAY 
My 


head wearing a tiara, has a 


ht Nik NN 

WN 
| , \ 
strange grandeur about it, 


and we cannot but feel a 


profound admiration for the 


genius which prompted this 


conception, at once barbarous 


and noble, in which the 49,8 eS. pas i 
strength of beast and bird Will NU SULA SSee UTC tia 


is united and made trib- Winged Bull from Nineveh. 
utary to the dominant human soul. 

Coupled naturally in our thought with Nineveh, the great city of the Tigris, is 
Babylon, mistress of the Euphrates. On the way from Nineveh to Babylon lies 
Bagdad, and we linger for a few words about this city of the Kalifs, ancient from 
our point of view, but only the child of yesterday in comparison with its great neigh- 
bors of the primeval world. 

A certain disappointment, however, awaits the traveller who enters Bagdad, his 


150 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


imagination filled with visions borrowed from the “Arabian Nights” and the tradi- 
tions of Haroun-al-Raschid. The eleven centuries which have passed ‘since the city 
was founded, the innumerable wars, the invasions of rebel Turkomans, the inundations 
of the Tigris, the storms from the desert,—all have united in the destruction of 
those splendid buildings with which Arab civilization and an enthusiastic faith once 
endowed this superb queen of the east. But the traveller who relinquishes his illu- 
sions, and contents himself with exploring the modern city, will find much to gratify 
his curiosity, and even to excite his admiration. The Arabian river, the blue sky of 


Mesopotamia, which reflects its azure in the faience of the cupolas, a few mosques, the 


MATT TTT 


Mosque of Iman-Moussa. 


picturesque bazaars, the crowd of Asiatic types of every variety, will offer him pic 
tures forever to be retained in memory. 

Bagdad has the aspect of a great city, its minarets gleaming from afar across 
the desert in which it lies like an oasis. Upon its eastern side it is defended by a 
vast belt of walls in good condition, protected by bastions and a wide moat, easily 
filled from the Tigris. This wall at its two extremities meets the river, which is 
the city’s western defence, and it is from this side that Bagdad is seen to the best 
advantage. The Pacha’s palace, the mosques, cafés, houses, and gardens, which line 


the bank and are reflected in the water, form a beautiful picture. Behind this. water 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 151 


front are grouped the diverse quarters of the city, occupying — but by no means filling 
with houses — the vast space between the river and the walls. At the east and south 
are wide desolate commons, where camels feed, and where only some rare heap of 
ruins suggests that the place is yet part and parcel of a great city. By the extent 
of its fortifications, we see plainly that Bagdad was once incomparably more impor- 
tant than it now is. The actual present population does not exceed fifty thousand. 
and of these but part are Mussulman, a large number being Jews and Christians of 
the various communions existing in the East. 

Across the river is a comparatively new quarter, of which the population differs 
widely from that within the city proper. It consists of Bedouin Arabs, temporarily: 


ALA 


i} 


| 
iN 
WAN WAVRUIIY 


| 
\ 
| 
i} 


| / 
UHM 


Akar-Kutf. 


lodged there, and of Persians, who have a preference for the more independent life 
of the suburbs. A bridge of boats unites it with the city, across which are passing 
all the time Bedouin caravans, horsemen, laden camels, or fiocks of sheep driven to 
market. 

On this side of the Tigris rises, amid the palm-trees, the Mosque of Iman-Moussa 
(page 150), with its four graceful minarets and its two cupolas, glittering with enamel 
and arabesques. Around this great mosque are grouped the houses of the priests, 


making a little village. 


152 VOYAGES AND TRAVETS. 4 


About four hours’ ride from Bagdad westward lies a very curious and ancient 
ruin, known as the Tower of Akar-Kuf, to which the traveller may well devote a 
day. The adjacent country is full of low hillocks and dried-up canals; a lake, rep- 
resented on the maps as lying at a little distance from Akar-Kuf, is also dry, and 
its bed completely filled with a little, low, red plant, which gives a weird and _ sinister 
air to the scene. 

The ruin itself (page 151) is a square solid mass built of bricks, having: still 
a height of one hundred and twenty-eight feet; it has been attacked on two of its 
sides, with the intention of penetrating it, either through curiosity or in the search 
for treasure. The bricks of which the tower is made are not burnt, but only har- 
dened in the sun. They are placed flat, one upon another, and cemented with the 
same earth of which they are made. Hight or ten rows of them form a layer two 
feet or two and a half thick; then follows a layer of earth and a layer of straw, 
and then the bricks recommence. Square holes exist here and there, which may haye 
served for the support of scaffoldings, and perhaps also to facilitate the drying of 
the mass, for the apertures evidently penetrate far into the interior. The layers of 
straw, which project beyond the bricks, can be seen at a distance: they are in perfect 
preservation, and have resisted the action of time better than the hardest wood. 

A few bricks have been found at Akar-Kuf bearing inscriptions, from which we 
judge this curious structure to have been built as a sort of votive offering to some 
divinity otherwise unknown to us, and by some king concerning whom history is silent. 

It is worth remark, however, that the Arabs call the place “Nimrod’s Hill;” and 
we are led to notice how Assyria and Babylonia are filled with the name of Nimrod, 
as that of Abraham prevails in Mesopotamia, of Ceasar in ancient France, of Trajan 
in the valley of the Danube, and of Alexander in the remote East. Whence comes 
this strange popularity of a man who, perhaps, may have founded some rude form of 
a state, but who appears in history only as “a mighty hunter before the Lord”? We 
must remember that the mighty hunter of those early days was the great defender 
and civilizer; when the earth belonged rather to beasts than to men, and the terror 
of those monsters of sea and land lay upon all men’s souls, he who brought destruc- 
tion to the python and the crocodile, to the tiger, the leopard, and the lion, was 
the universal benefactor, the man of all others to be honored by his fellows and 
commemorated by posterity. 

And now, at last, we have before us Babylon the Great, its site some fifty miles 
south of Bagdad. To reach it we traverse a desolate steppe which was once the 
fertile plain of Babylonia, producing, in the Persian days, one third of the whole 
agricultural revenue of that great empire. Chaldzan industry had easily solved the 
problem, — how to make up for the natural aridity of a plain where it never rains, and 


there are no springs nor any running water save its three great rivers. From these 


; 


i ag 


Nay 


i 
ii 
late 


¢) 
iy 


yy) 


( 
(ly 
I 


\\ 


\ 


WN) 
‘iN 


OF BABYLON, 


NS 


ANGING GARDE. 


Fi 


i | 


rivers were cut great canals, and from the canals a perfect network of smaller channels, 


154 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


reticulating the whole surface of the ground, like the veins of a leaf. All this has 
long since fallen into neglect. ‘“ Where the Turk has passed, the grass no longer 
grows,” says the Eastern proverb; and even the annual overflow of the Euphrates now 
only creates here a pestilential marsh. | 

It was about eight o’clock in the morning of our third day from Bagdad when we 
came in sight of the palm-trees of the Khan Mehaouil, where begin the famous ruins, 
and, as we approached, memory supplied the details of the ancient city. It was a per- 
fect square, not far from fifty miles in circuit. The wall was eighty feet high, and of 
the same thickness, and surmounted by two rows of turrets, two hundred and fifty in 
number, facing each other, and leaving between them space for the passage of a four- 
horse chariot. The wall was pierced with a hundred gates of brass, and outside of it 
was a wide deep moat filled with water. The quadrangular plan of the exterior was 
carried out within, the streets cutting each other at right angles and abutting at the 
gates, and at other entrances pierced in the quays which followed the windings of the 
river for a length of twenty-one miles. All this immense space within the walls was 
not, however, occupied with buildings, the houses, three or four stories high, being sep- 
arated from each other by extensive gardens, and large open spaces being left within 
the city for the cultivation of grain. Thus, in general terms, we may represent to our- 
selves this queen of the East in the time of her glory; and what strikes us in the 
description the ancients have left us is a combination of the useful with the magnifi- 
cent, which we find nowhere else in the same degree. All their immense works, 
ramparts, canals, quays, bridges, and artificial lakes, are, above all, works of public 
utility. 3 

From this statement we except the famous Hanging Gardens, which are believed to 
have been “a labor of love.” Some Babylonian king, history tells us, — but concern- 
ing his name we have no information, —had a favorite Persian sultana, who forever 
regretted, in the level and monotonous land of Chaldsea, the varied scenery of her 
native home. ‘T’o combat this nostalgia, the royal lover constructed upon the top of 
the citadel a great garden wherein he gathered all the floral marvels of his vast 
empire. We borrow the description of Diodorus Siculus, the only author who speaks 
minutely of this wonder of the world. 3 

“This garden, square in form, had a length of four hundred feet on each side. 
It was reached by steps, rising upon terraces like an amphitheatre, these terraces being 
supported by pillars, of which the tallest supported the garden itself. The walls 
were twenty-two feet thick, and the columns stood ten feet apart. The platforms 
of the terraces were composed of blocks of stone, sixteen feet by four, covered with 
a layer of asphaltum and rushes, then a double layer of cemented bricks, and finally 


with sheets of lead, to prevent the water from filtering through. Upon all this was 


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156 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. | ' 


laid a depth of earth sufficient to receive the roots of the largest trees; and this 
artificial soil was then filled with trees of the rarest and most beautiful kinds. The 
columns, rising gradually, allowed the light to penetrate through the interspaces, 
and gave access to the royal apartments, numerous and beautifully decorated. One 
of these columns was hollow from summit to base, and contained hydraulic contrivances 
for bringing up a vast amount of water from the river.” Strabo adds that the pillars 
sustaining the gardens were hollow blocks of masonry, destined to receive the roots 
of the larger trees; and Quintus Curtius speaks of some of these trees as being fifty 
feet high and producing fruit, just as if they were growing in the ground. 

Meanwhile, from the flat roof of the khan we get our first look at the real scene 
as it lies before the traveller of to-day. It is a wide and nearly level plain, fur- 
rowed by traces of ancient canals, a few low masses of ruins in the distance, and 
two isolated groups of palm-trees far away upon the horizon. No words can ex- 
press the mute and desolate grandeur of this solitude, where sleeps the city which 
was in its time the capital of the civilized world. Vastly more impressive than Nine- 
veh, it brings to mind, in literal fulfilment, the solemn maledictions of the Prophet : 
“Thou hast spoken against this place to cut it off, that none shall remain in it, 
neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate forever.” 

The ancient city lay on both sides of the river, and Queen Nitocris constructed 
a bridge, we are told, uniting the two sides. On the western bank there remains but 
one conspicuous ruin; that is, however, of so much importance that we select it as 
the typical illustration of Babylon as it is to-day. It is called Birs Nimroud, or Nim- 
rod’s ‘Tower, and may well be as ancient as the mighty hunter whose name it bears. 
It stands upon an artificial elevation nearly two hundred feet in height and six hun- 
dred long. At base this mass has the form of a rectangle. From its summit, and 
nearly in the centre, rises a massive brick tower or column. At regular intervals, 
symmetrically arranged, are openings which traverse the solid mass of this gigantic 
column, but for what purpose they were left it is impossible to conjecture. The column 
itself is about thirty feet in height. 

From one disaster to another Babylon has sunk, till it has become but a name, — 
a memory. Where are now its temples, its walls, its hanging gardens, its palaces? — 
The traveller in vain seeks a vestige of them; nothing guides him to any discovery; | 
not even their ruins exist; and in the midst of the far-stretching desert, across which 
once glittered the brilliant city of Semiramis, it is but by accident that he detects 
the few shapeless mounds which indicate the place where stood this capital of the 
early world. The great Huphrates still flows on its lordly way to the sea, but the 
magnificent quays so much admired by Herodotus have vanished utterly, and in their 
stead there is but a little hamlet of Arab cottages, which does not even seek in its 


name to perpetuate the memory of Babylon. 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 15 


~] 


ood Ba) RDA Bie jeook CAR 


i BHERAN, the modern capital of Persia, stands in the midst of a 


wide, stony, barren plain, bordered on the east and west by ridges 


of sterile hills, and on the north by the vast chain of the Alboorz 
Mountains. The city lies really lower than the plain around it, 
being built in a natural hollow of the ground, the most ineligible 
site, it would seem, in the whole neighborhood. Its appearance 
from without is in no way prepossessing, nothing of it being visible but 
the wall of unburnt brick cemented with mud, defended by small round 
towers placed at regular intervals, and by a dry moat. This wall has 
six gates of no architectural importance, with the exception of the south- 
ern or New Gate, represented on page 158, and this rather showy than 
beautiful. It is built of glazed bricks, with legendary figures in mosaic ~ 
over the entrance, and four round towers, covered with enamelled tiles, 
rising to a considerable height above the level of the wall. 

Nor is the interior of the city more attractive. The houses are 
poor and shabby and the streets narrow, such as are not bazaars pre- 
senting nothing to the view but the dead wall of the houses on either side, and 
the open drain through the centre, of the roadway. ‘The bazaars, which are very nu- 
merous and thronged by a motley population, are roofed in, and lighted from above by 
a series of small glass domes. 

The chief Mosque has a handsome enamelled fagade, and a gilt-topped dome. 
Caravansaries are numerous, the city being the great thoroughfare of travel from west 
to east across Northern Persia. 

Teheran appears to have been a place of but little importance until the middle 
of the last century, at which time the founder of the present dynasty removed his 
_ capital thither from Ispahan, with the intention of being nearer his own people, a tribe 
occupying a region on the Caspian shore. 

South from Teheran, and about half-way between the Caspian Sea and the Per- 


sian Gulf, lies Ispahan, more in ruins than any other of the cities of Persia. From 


153 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


i 
i) 


a 


a) 


Gate of Teheran. 


the six or seven hundred thousand inhabitants which it had in the seventeenth cen- 
tury, it is now reduced to fifty or sixty thousand, and large sections of the town 
are filled with crumbling heaps that once were lofty structures. Everything has 
happened to this city, since the period that put a limit to its grandeur. To be 
stormed by an Afghan army is assuredly a calamity of the first order; and to traverse 
all the phases of anarchy and civil war, is scarcely calculated to restore prosperity. 
For all this, Ispahan has yet some maryellously beautiful spots within its walls, and none 


more enchanting than the Shah’s Garden, represented on page 159.  Larlier travellers 


SCENES [1N MANY LANDS. 159 


describe the magnificent avenues of plane-trees of this garden, which, it must be 
owned, have suffered much; but there are still noble rows of this superb tree left, 
making a boulevard bordered by buildings and sculptured figures worthy of the trees, 
and intercepted at regular intervals by great fountains whence ‘avenues and paths 
lead off in every direction. ‘These avenues are paved in the centre, and, according to 
custom in Persian gardens, are raised about a foot above the surrounding ground, 
which is covered with great shrubs and rare plants. In no way is one more clearly 
shown that this magnificence is but the shadow of the past than in noticing the pro- 


found solitude of all this beautiful place, which the actual population has entirely 


S 


The Shah’s Garden. 


deserted, and which, indeed, it could not fill. Then, the water in the ponds is stagnant 
which formerly was fresh and sparkling, and where the garden-beds used to be, wild 
plants grow luxuriantly ; worst of all, the pavement of the avenues is mostly broken 
and destroyed. But still, notwithstanding all its desolation, there is much grandeur 
and elegance in these remains of the Tchehar-Bagh, and of the Garden of the Shah. 

From Teheran, the great caravan route leads across the country, nearly due east, 
to Mashhad, the sacred city, where it is the dearest wish of the good Persian Mus- 
sulman to be buried, if so be his friends can afford the money to buy him a burial- 
place in it, and the time to convey his remains thither. 


Between Teheran and Mashhad the most important town is Semnoon, a place of 


160 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


considerable antiquity, and in many respects attractive to the traveller. There is a 
curious style of dwelling-houses in this town, large and lofty, constructed, it is true, 
only of sun-dried bricks and mud, but in castellated form, with loopholes, bastions, 
and towers, evidently designed for defence. They must have been built many centu- 
ries ago, the well-tempered and tenacious clay used for these purposes remaining long 
uninjured in the dry Persian atmosphere; and there they stand, lofty and solid as 
the day they were erected, overtopping the city, while the ancient families who once 
occupied them have long since perished, leaving not even a trace of their history. 
On the other hand, much of the ground in Semnoon is honeycombed with caves 
where the inhabitants dwell, with their flocks and herds, preferring, it would seem, 
these -primitive abodes to the ancient buildings which stand unoccupied all about 
them. 

There is a mosque of modern construction in Semnoon, built of glazed bricks, 
and near it an ancient minaret (see page 161) whose top is reached by an ascent 
of ninety steps. A little column rises from the platform, and the height of the whole 
structure is about one hundred and twenty feet. This minaret leans visibly towards 
the north; its surface, which is covered with bricks laid in various regular patterns, 
has been much battered and defaced by wind and weather, but it bears an inscrip- 
tion yet legible, which gives reason to believe it was built by one Ali Hassan, in 
the tenth century of our era. Whether it was ingeniously designed to vary from the 
perpendicular, or whether it has assumed its leaning position in the course of the ages 
since its erection, we shall never know, but it seems more probable that a gradual 
and gentle subsidence of the ground has produced this result, than that any archi- - 
tect should willingly have thus imperilled the perpetuity of his own work. 

Mashhad, the capital of Persian Khorassan, is an important commercial centre, 
being the point of convergence of the caravan routes between Persia and India and 
China, through the countries of Afghanistan and Turkestan respectively. It covers a 
great extent of ground, being surrounded by fortified walls several miles in circuit. 
Much of this intramural area is, however, occupied by gardens and orchards, but still 
larger space is devoted to cemeteries, so that nothing can be more sombre than the 
appearance of the town. The tomb of a Mussulman saint, Imam Raza, situated in 
Mashhad, has given the city such a sacred character throughout Persia, that it is 
the highest ambition of every Mussulman in the Shah’s empire to be buried within 
its walls. He visits it while alive, at any rate, and if by chance he die upon this 
pilgrimage, he is so much the surer of Paradise. The number of pilgrims at one 
time used to amount to thirty or forty thousand yearly, but of late, since the famine, 
has fallen off to ten or twelve thousand. Besides the many who die on their pilgrim- 
age, and hence are buried in Mashhad, it is quite common for pilgrims to bring with 


them the remains of their friends, to inter them in the holy city. And so it has 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 161 


come to pass that Mashhad is like a city of the dead, and its inhabited dwellings have 
an air of being built at random among the graveyards and the ruins. 

There is nothing accidental, however, about the appearance of the Mosque of 
Imam Raza, with its group of religious and ornamental appendages, occupying as it 
does the centre of the city, and towering aboye all other buildings, a magnificent group 
of domes and minarets. To it all roads lead, and every traveller’s gaze is at once 


directed, and on reaching the spot the distant promise is more than made good. 


eng : 


SS 
| ALEXARDRE & BAR 


Minaret of Semnoon. 


The first thing that strikes the eye is a noble oblong mass of buildings enclosing 
a court of about four hundred and eighty feet in length, and two hundred and twenty- 
five in width. These buildings are two stories in height, the apartments opening: in 
front into a handsome arcaded gallery. In the centre of each side and each end 
is a magnificent and very lofty gateway (see page 163), and the whole is com- 
pletely incrusted with a mosaic work of tiles, painted and glazed, and arranged in 


162 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


figures of the most tasteful patterns and colors. This is called the Sahn. The area 
of this court is flagged with grave-stones, forming a continuous, though not a very 
smooth pavement, under which lie interred the remains of Persian nobles, brought 
hither from all parts of the country, to be buried as near as possible to the bones 
of their favorite saint. 7 

The gateways at the two ends of the court contain wickets of elegant wrought : 
steel, for purposes of entrance and exit. The gate on the southwest gives admittance 
into the mausoleum, while that on the opposite side is built only for uniformity ; it 
is in architecture and size the exact copy of its prototype, but differs in ornament, 
the former being adorned with gilding, the latter with colored tiles. 

Of the mausoleum itself little is seen externally except the dome, which is coy- 
ered with gilded tiles relieved with broad bands of bright blue, which bear Arabic 
inscriptions in letters of gold. Its most striking ornaments, however, are two beauti- 
ful minarets, one of which springs from a part of the mausoleum itself, the other, from 
the gateway opposite. Each of these minarets has a handsome gallery of carved 
wood, richly gilded, as is also the larger part of the shaft itself. 

Beneath the dome lie the remains of the saint; and very near is another tomb, 
which the western traveller will regard with much deeper interest, — none other than 
that. of his boyhood’s friend, the great Kalif, the “good Haroun-al-Raschid.” All that 
gold and silver, and wrought steel of finest quality, and jewels and Persian carpets, 
and ever-burning wax candles, can add of majesty and solemnity to this shrine, has 
been lavished upon it. The expense of its maintenance is considerable, and is pro- 
vided for in certain regular ways worth mentioning. Tirst, by rents of a caravan- 
sary and a bazaar belonging to the establishment, but outside its grounds; secondly, 
by the rent of the lower row of apartments around the court, which are let for shops; 
lastly, by the large sums obtained for permission to inter within the sacred enclosure. 

The events which have consecrated this as the principal shrine in Persia, are 
briefly as follows: it is related that Alexander the Great, in his expeditions through 
Khorassan, came by chance to this spot, and pitched his tent here. During the night 
he had a dream, which gave him so much uneasiness that, according to the legend, 
he called for his wise man, Aristotle, and communicated it to him. The latter 
explained the dream as signifying that some person of holy origin should at some 
future time be interred upon this spot. Upon this Alexander decided to mark the 
place, and ordered four walls to be built,.as a memorial to future times of his pro- — 
phetic dream. 

Centuries passed away; and the spot remained undisturbed until, one day, Ha- 
roun-al-Raschid, reading by chance a book of Aristotle, learned what Alexander had 
done. The story interested him, and being at that time near his end, he gave orders 


that when he should die his body should be interred in the place indicated by the 


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INTERIOR COURT OF THE MOSQUE OF IMAN RAZA. 


164 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


sage as the spot where Alexander’s walls were built. That his wish might be the 
more readily carried out, he removed nearer to Mashhad, and at his death, shortly 
after, the command he had given was fulfilled. And still it remained uncertain who 
the sacred occupant of the enclosure was to be. This, however, speedily decided itself. 
A certain Mussulman saint, Im4m Razdé, poisoned by order of Haroun-al-Raschid’s 
son and successor, signified by certain unmistakable signs where he was to be interred, 
and lo! it was within Alexander’s walls, and with his feet towards the head of 


Haroun-al-Raschid. 


Ruins of Toos. 


Three hundred years after this, the performance of miracles of healing at this 
tomb recalled attention to its sacred character, and the present Mausoleum was erected, 
since which time successive Shahs have vied with one another in its adornment. 
Around the mosque itself are gathered more than a dozen buildings of various designs, 
and the whole quarter is thronged daily with pilgrims and students. No better oppor- 
tunity exists in Persia for the study of Arab art as modified by Mongol influences, 
and it is only to be regretted that so few travellers, who visit the empire of the 
Shah, find their way to this most interesting place. 

Seventeen miles northwest of Mashhad are the remains of the once celebrated city 
of Toos, the ancient capital, upon the eastern bank of a small stream that forms a 


principal branch of the river Mashhad. 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 165 


The walls of Toos are conspicuous at a distance upon the slightly inclined plane 
of the valley’s castern side. They are, as usual in Persia, of mud, with towers at 
intervals, all ruinous indeed, but still standing high above the ground. They embrace 
a circuit of from three to four miles, but there is little within them to indicate their 
former magnificence. The peasantry of a village which now occupies a mound of 
earth in one quarter of it, cultivate the greater part of the area, reaping good crops 
of wheat and barley from ground once coyered with houses, and in fact chiefly formed 


from the crumbled materials of their walls. The most important ruin is a large square 


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Persian Pigeon House. 


building (see page 164), constructed of burnt brick, and partly covered by a dome 
rising in the centre. Its height is considerable, and it closely resembles many of the 
tombs near Delhi. ‘The exterior dome has severely felt the injuries of time, but the 
inner one is quite perfect. Nothing about it indicates its date or use; a solitary 
fombstone- on one side the doorway bears an inscription of which nothing could be 
made out but the word “Allah.” At a little distance from the building there is 
another tombstone, which has evidently been removed to the spot where it lies from 
some other place. 

Perhaps the most curious structures to be found in Persia are the pigeon-towers, 


with which some of the larger cities are enclosed as by a cordon of forts. These 


166 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


are high round towers, slightly tapering upwards, with several small pointed domes 
on top, full of apertures by which the pigeons enter. The exterior of the tower is 
usually whitewashed and painted with fanciful cornices, and all manner of strange 
devices, producing a quaint and picturesque effect. These towers are intended for 
the collection of guano as a fertilizer for the melon gardens, so numerous through- 
out Persia. The whole interior of the tower is divided into thousands of little trian- 
gular niches, in which the pigeons make their nests and rear their young. A few 
domesticated doves are first put into a tower, and they soon attract the wild ones, 
which come in myriads and establish themselves in the domiciles prepared for them. 
They are all of a slaty-blue color, like our common wood-pigeon. The only entrance 
for man into the pigeon-tower is a door, or rather a hole, near the bottom, which is 
closed up with a shutter or stone slab fastened in, and remains shut for the greater 
part of the year, during the periods of incubation and fledging of the young birds. 
When opened, the bottom of the tower is filled up to the height of several feet with 
the precious fertilizer. ‘These pigeon-towers formerly rented for a high price, but now 


are less in demand, and are in some cases totally neglected. 


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SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 167 


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IN the northwestern corner of India lies the Punjaub, 
—“the land of the five rivers,”— the home of the Sikhs, a 
brave and warlike people, who maintained their independence 
until 1849, falling under English authority only after a 
resolute resistance, and two long and sanguinary wars. 

The religion of the Sikhs is neither Mohammedan nor 
Hindoo, but of greater simplicity than either, being little 
more than a form of Deism, accompanied with the inculca- 
tion of moral precepts. Umritseer, their holy city, is two 
the capital of the 
The 


British part of the town is the usual station of bunga- 


hours distant by rail from Lahore, 


Punjaub, and is incessantly frequented by pilgrims. 


lows and avenues of trees, and the native portion a mere 


nest of houses, like an ant-hill. Amid this confusion of 


mean dwellings, rises, in strange contrast, the stately 


splendor of the Golden Temple, represented on page 169. 
sixty feet in length and thirty in width, stands in the 


168 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


middle of a monstrous tank, two hundred yards square. Surrounding it are many 
handsome structures called Durhmsalas, occupied by pilgrims who, during their stay, 
are housed, fed, and clothed by the benevolent rajahs to whom the buildings belong. 
Upon entering the grounds surrounding the temple, the visitor is required to lay off 
his shoes and replace them by woollen slippers, the enforcement of this rule being 
a privilege left to the Sikhs in memory of their adherence to their English rulers 
in the time of the Indian mutiny. Half-way up the path leading to the temple, a 
square, paved with mosaics, is flanked by pavilions from whose open windows the 
priests, seated inside, salaam to the stranger, and invite him to enter. In one of 
them is shown the cell where the Sikh Bible is guarded by night, and whence it is 
solemnly carried every morning into the Golden Temple. Of this book Max Miller 
says: “Though tedious as a whole, it contains here and there treasures of really 
deep poetic thought.” 

The gateway to the path leading to the temple across the tank is covered with 
plates of chased silver twelve feet square, and along this bridge marble pedestals 
support richly gilded lamps. The temple is two-storied, the walls being of marble 
inlaid with mosaics of the Florentine style, representing birds, vases, and flowers; 
the roof is surmounted by three domes, around which are grouped a multitude of 
little cupolas, all highly gilded, and glittering in the light. Add to this silver doors 
embossed and chased with various designs, scarlet curtains, and orange banners flaunt- 
ing from high flagstaffs of the same color, and you have a scene of really dazzling 
effect. Across the little bridge and through the open door, a crowd is moving in- 
cessantly in and out. Within the temple, upon an embroidered cushion and beneath 
a superb canopy, lies the open volume of the sacred writings. Before it sits the 
chief priest, a young man who seems only to watch the crowd or idly talk with 
those near him. At his side another chants some sacred hymn in a monotonous 
but not unmusical voice, accompanied by musicians beating the Indian drum. A 
white sheet stretched upon the ground before him receives the offerings of the faithful, 
very numerous, but of the smallest possible value. 

The sacred tank — Umrita Saras, “the fount of immortality” — was constructed 
in 1581, and its chief miracle is, that though thousands of filthy pilgrims bathe in 
it, it always remains pure, as such a fountain should be. About two hundred years 
after its construction, Ahmed Shah, alarmed at the growing importance of the Sikhs 
and their religion, came down from Afghanistan, filled up the sacred tank, and, to 
complete its profanation, slaughtered over it the sacred kine of the Hindoos. This 
so enraged the Sikhs that they began a warfare, half religious, half patriotic, against 
their Mussulman neighbors, which resulted in the overthrow of the foreign invaders. 
The desecrated fountain was repaired and purified, and, from that: day to this, has 


duly wrought miracles to the satisfaction of the pilgrims who visit it, and doubtless 


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170 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


to that of the five or six hundred lazy priests who are maintained here in idleness 
by the gifts of the faithful. | 

In Lahore, the chief city of the Punjaub, the most notable edifice is the tomb 
of her greatest ruler, Runjeet Sing. The building stands at the end of a quadran- 


gle, two hundred yards square, and has a large artificial pond in front of it; it is 


aor : 


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Tomb of Runjeet Sing. 


constructed of red sandstone, inlaid with marbles in designs of roses and lilies. Here 
the king’s remains were burned with great pomp, on his death in 1840, and his four 
wives, together with five Circassian slaves, perished upon the funeral pile. The “ Lion 
of Lahore,” as his contemporaries styled him, was a truly remarkable man. Although 
his boyhood had been passed in the idleness and profligacy of an Oriental harem, he 


manifested the mental vigor which would presuppose a Spartan training. Possessed 


eet 
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SCENES [IN MANY LANDS. 171 


of great natural courage, he was so ruled by his judgment that he courted no 
unnecessary danger, while never shunning that which it was expedient to encounter. 
In his dealings with men he showed unusual knowledge of human nature, and knew 
not only how to reduce to subjection the proud and high-spirited chiefs of the Pun- 
jaub, but to make them his warmest personal friends and allies. He was an excel- 
‘lent man of business, though he could neither read nor write, and it was his policy 


to seem a deyout believer, and to listen for hours daily to the reading of the Sikh 


Dwelling-Houses in Srinagar. 


scriptures, while in reality his own advancement was the only law to which he gave 
the slightest obedience. 

This prince was for some years the owner of the great Koh-i-noor, and it passed 
from the hands of his successor, on the annexation of the Punjaub, into the posses- 
sion of the East India Company, by whom it was delivered up to Queen Victoria. 

On the north of the Punjaub lies the beautiful land of Cashmere, an irregular 
valley from five ta six thousand feet above the level of the sea, and shut in by 
mountains of which the summits rise here and there into the region of perpetual 


snow. 
Srinagar, the chief city, lies along the two banks of that great branch of the 


172 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


Indus known in classic story as the Hydaspes. Its population is perhaps a hundred 
and twenty thousand ; and the abundance of ruins scattered throughout the town 
proves that its inhabitants were once much more numerous. Many of the dwelling- 
houses are two or three stories in height, and resemble Swiss chdlets ; others have 


but one floor, and are surrounded by broad verandas (see page 171), while all build- 


ie 
ag" 


Buddhist Temple, Pandradar. 


ings, even to mosques and palaces, are roofed with a pe layer of turf, giving them 
a singular air of rusticity. 

In striking contrast to these modern structures are remains of early architecture 
of great solidity and in excellent preservation. One of the finest of these ancient 


‘buildings is a Buddhist temple, represented above, situated at Pandradar, the former 
capital of Cashmere. 


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174 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


The inhabitants of this valley belong to the purest Aryan type. The men are 
tall, robust, and well-formed, and the women of distinguished beauty, not unlike the 
handsomest Italian peasant-women. 

About two hundred miles south-east from Lahore stands Delhi, the great Indian 
metropolis, or, indeed, we might say, the ancient capital of the Asiatic world. A com- 
parison is naturally suggested between Delhi and Rome; but while Rome presents the 
spectacle of a city gradually growing in size and importance, till it becomes, through 
the ambition of its inhabitants, the mistress of the world, Delhi appears to have played 
an opposite rdéle. Founded originally by imyaders not native to the Indian soil, it 
has been fought for and captured in turn by the successive conquerors of the pen~ 
insula, and has been regarded as, in a sense, the palladium upon whose fate depended 
the destiny of the entire country,—a superstition lasting until our own time, and held 
of such importance that the English were never regarded as legally the masters of 
india until the time when the English banner waved from the towers of °Delhi. 
Rome, too, can boast of an antiquity of but twenty-six centuries, while the ancient 
Indian traditions make mention of three cities, Madhanti, Hastinapoura, and Indra- 
pechta, which have succeeded one another upon the spot now occupied by the modern 
Delhi, the last of which, Indrapéchta, was “founded in the thirteenth century before 
the Christian era. | 

Having become the capital of the great Mussulman empire of India, Delhi, at 
the will of each new dynasty, was transported to some new site, and in this pere- 
grination has strewn with its monuments a plain twenty-three miles in length and 
eleven in breadth. Of these structures, the most imposing is the triumphal column 
of Koutab, erected by the Mussulman conqueror Koutab-Oudin-Higeb, in the very 
centre of the latest Hindoo capital. The column is approached by a narrow path 
between two rows of lofty trees, united into an arbor by a luxuriant growth of 
jasmine. Following this path for some distance, the traveller finds himself on the 
edge of a shallow ravine, filled with shrubbery and flowering plants, at the end of 
which rises the tall column, outlining its reddish mass against the azure of the sky. 

Nowhere else in the world, perhaps, has Nature added so much grace to the 
work of man. In general, ruined cities are sad and desolate ; it would seem that 
the soil itself had also been smitten with a curse. Here, on the contrary, every- 
thing is fresh, gay, and delightful; birds fill the air with their music, and the most 
luxuriant ~flowers are in bloom as if in a garden. Crossing this ravine we find our- 
selves at the entrance of the building, before Aladdin’s Gate, whose exquisite beauty — 
is reproduced on the opposite page, from a photograph taken upon the spot. 

This portal, erected in 1310 by the Sultan Ala-Oudin, might well have inspired the 
famous author of the story of the wondrous Lamp ; the Genius of the Roc surely 


never created anything more fairy-like. The work of the Spanish Moors in Grenada 


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GATE. DELHI. 


176 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


cannot be compared to this architectural gem. Here, it is the stone itself, a red 
sandstone relieved with white marble, which furnishes the color, and the delicate ara- 
besques which cover all its faces are genuine carvings, while in the Alhambra the 
effect is obtained by the use of brilliant color and gilding spread out upon meagre 
structures of brickwork. Besides, there is not a poimt in the Moorish palace where 
one finds the purity of line and grandeur of proportion which characterize to so 
high a degree the work of the Indian sultan. | 

This gate forms a square pavilion pierced on each side by a denticulated arch, 
and surmounted by a handsome dome. The interior of the pavilion is finished with 
much elegance. Entering through this magnificent portal, the traveller at once finds 
himself at the foot of .the Koutab, which, standing entirely isolated, rises in the centre 
of a paved area, lifting its haughty head to the height of two hundred and twenty- 
seven feet. The tower is in the form of a cylinder, forty-six feet in diameter at. 
the base, and only ten at the summit. It is divided into five stories, which grow 
less in height from the lowest upward. The three lower are of red sandstone; the 
upper, built in 1368, to repair damage done by lightning twenty-eight years before, 
are of marble. . 

Within the city, the palace of the Grand Moguls is the chief object of interest 
to the visitor. This mass of buildings, inclosed by a wall forty feet high and three 
quarters of a mile in circumference, stands at the head of the main thoroughfare, 
the Chandnee Chouk, or Silversmiths’ Street; the walls, of red sandstone, are crenel- 
lated and adorned with bands in relief, and in the centre of each side of the quad- 
rilateral is a handsome gate, flanked with turrets and surmounted with kiosques. A 
kind of bastion, pierced with an entrance-way surrounded by slender minarets, pro- 
tects each of these gates. These fortifications are of the best period of Indo-Mus- 
sulman art, the reign of Shah Jehan, in the early part of the seventeenth century. 

Within the walls the eye is shocked by long and ugly rows of barracks, built 
by the English upon their occupation of the town. In the inner court, however, 
there yet remains the great audience hall and the throne hall, with something of 
their ancient splendor. ‘The latter is a vast kiosque of white marble, of perfect sim- 
plicity in its exterior, but of great magnificence in the interior decoration, its columns 
and arches and dome being adorned with arabesques in precious stones incrusted upon 
the marble. ‘The sunlight striking upon these enchanting mosaics, seems to give 
life to the delicate wreaths of flowers of lapis-lazuli, of onyx and sardonyx and a 
thousand other gems. ‘Tavernier, a French jeweller, who visited and described the 
palace of the Grand Moguls at a date when it was yet in all its splendor, tells us 
that the ceiling of this hall was covered with a tissue. of gold and silver of elegant 
workmanship, which he estimates at a value of five million dollars. Heavy silk drape- 


ries, festooned with chains of solid gold, hung in the arched entrances, and in the 


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178 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


eentre stood the marvel of marvels, the famous “peacock throne.” This throne, of 
solid gold, measured six feet and three quarters in length and five in width, and 
formed a low, broad seat, the back of which represented a peacock’s tail, glittering 
with enamels and precious stones; a canopy, also of massive gold, bordered with a 
long, thick fringe of fine pearls, and resting on twelve golden columns, covered the 
back of the throne, while the front was shielded by two immense parasols of velvet 
embroidered with pearls, having gold handles set thickly with diamonds. This master- 
piece of jeweller’s work was made by a French goldsmith attached to the court of 
the Shah Jehan, and is estimated by Tavernier to have cost thirty millions of dollars. 
In 1739 it was carried off from Delhi by Nadir Shah, the great Persian conqueror, 
and has probably long since been destroyed. 

The imperial baths and the emperor’s private mosque are still shown in the 
palace of Delhi, fine structures, and beautifully decorated with mosaics and carvings 
in marble and ivory. Between the various buildings which compose the palace extend 
vast spaces, once the fairy-like gardens so extolled by the Mogul poets, where now 
remain but a few forlorn trees, half buried under ruins. Although the English have 
taken away from Delhi its title of capital, and have even separated it from Hindos- 
tan by making it a dependency of the Punjaub, it is still considered by the native 
people as the capital of the north-west. No city rivals it in actual importance, 
unless, perhaps, Lahore. Its financial market is still the chief in Central Asia, and 
its bankers extend their correspondence into Arabia, Afghanistan, Thibet, and Tur- 
kestan. 

Two hundred and eighty miles svuth-east from Delhi, and connected with it by 
railway, is Lucknow, one of the most beautiful of all the Indian cities. It is sur- 


rounded on all sides by a beautiful park, traversed by countless rivulets, and towers 


and minarets in every variety rise over the tree-tops, making a graceful and pecu-— 


har silhouette. 

Within, the city does not disappoint the traveller. Its streets are broad and 
regular, bordered with rows of neat houses. Fountains surrounded by trees are 
abundant, and give the air a refreshing coolness. The inhabitants are picturesquely 
clad, and gentle in their manners, and the shops are uncommonly attractive. 

Many of the public buildings are of remarkable beauty : one of the finest is the 
Housseinabad Imambarra (see opposite page), a building erected for the celebration 
of the Mohammedan festival of the Mohurrum. It is resplendent with color and orna- 
ment, and makes a grand show under the blue sky of India; but it does not admit 
of being viewed too nearly, and the traveller will do well to content himself with 
admiration of the general effect. 

The city of Agra, though of far less antiquity than Delhi, and less beauty than 


Lucknow, is, in some respects, the most important point in northern India, being the 


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180 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


capital of the north-west provinces of Bengal, and the great commercial centre ul 
all that part of Hindostan. It is situated on the right bank of the Jumna, a’ mag- 
nificent tributary of the Ganges, and is connected by railway with Bengal, the Deccan, 
and the Punjaub. But the greatest glory of Agra is the wonderful Taj, a building 
erected by the Shah Jehan as a mausoleum in memory of his wife, concerning 
which all travellers agree in the opinion that it is the most beautiful edifice in the 
world. 

The Taj stands upon the river-bank, raising its gilded crescent to the height of 


two hundred and seventy feet above the water-level. It is surrounded on three sides 


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Garden-Gate of the Taj. 


by a walled garden of twenty-five acres in extent, having elegant pavilions at the 
four corners. The main entrance is through a magnificent Saracenic arch, eighty feet 
high, built of red sandstone, with panels of white marble which are covered with 
texts from the Koran inlaid in black marble. Passing under this arch, the Taj itself 
appears, in its dazzling white splendor, at the extremity of a wide avenue of cypress- 
trees. Like a statue on its pedestal, the building stands on a vast platform of red 
sandstone surmounted by a superb marble terrace fifteen feet high, from each angle of 
which springs a marble minaret a hundred and fifty feet in height. The mausoleum 


itself is an irregular octagon, with flat roof, from which rises a great central dome 


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182 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


and four lesser ones, and the four main facades haye each a lofty Saracenic arched 
entrance, flanked by two stories of deeply recessed windows. 

There is no part of the exterior, except the dome, which is not covered with 
arabesques and inscriptions in black marble upon the polished white of the surface, 
—in fact, it is said that the whole Koran is written there,—but it is done with 
so much taste that it adorns the architecture without crushing it. Bishop Heber says 
of the Taj, “It was built by Titans and finished by jewellers;” and, in truth, no 
more finely carved casket ever came from the patient hands of Chinese artificer. 
Another English writer says, “ Were there nothing to be seen in India but the Taj, 
it would be, for an artist or an architect, sufficient compensation for the long voyage, 
for no pen can do justice to its incomparable beauty and its astonishing grandeur.” 

But the interior even surpasses the exterior in magnificence. The sarcophagus of 
the sultana is in a vault directly under the centre of the building, and near it that 
of the Shah. The tombs are of the purest white marble, the sultana’s most elabo- 
rately ornamented with arabesques and texts in every variety of precious stones. 
Ascending to the main floor of the edifice, two duplicate sarcophagi are perceived, 
placed exactly above the real ones, and ornamented in the same style, but with more 
elaboration of details. They are protected by a marble screen eight feet high, of 
the most exquisite carving, a mere lace-work of stone, Interwoven with stems and 
leaves of lotos, rose, and passion-fiower. 

This magnificent edifice was commenced in 1630, and finished in 1647, and dur- 
ing these seventeen years twenty thousand workmen were constantly employed upon it. 
The magnitude of the structure required a hundred and forty thousand cart-loads of 
red sandstone and Rajpootana marble, and every province of the empire contributed to 
its adornment, sending precious stones of which a list was preserved in the public 
archives. ‘There was jasper from the Punjaub, lapis-lazuli from Ceylon, coral from 
Arabia, rock-crystal from Malwah, and onyx from Persia; ‘Thibet sent her turquoises, 
Yemen her agates, Asia Minor her chalcedony, Colombo her sapphires, Punnah her 
diamonds. Notwithstanding these free gifts and the forced labor of the workmen, 
the total cost of this gigantic work was about twelve million dollars. 

The Taj has shared in the disasters of its city. The Jats carried off its silver 
gates and its treasure ; the Mahrattas injured the mosaics; an Hnglish governor, Lord 
Bentinck, even went so far as to propose to sell it for the value of its materials ;_ 
but the Queen’s government understood its duties better. All the damage has been 
repaired, the edifice cleansed and restored, and the gardens, enriched with rare plants, 
are kept up as carefully as in the time of Shah Jehan. 

South from Agra, and about sixty miles away, there exists a wonderful group 
of buildings belonging to a period nearly a thousand years earlier than that at which 


the Taj was erected. They are the remains of the ancient city and fort of Gwalior, 


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GWALIOR. 


184 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


crowning the top of an escarped, isolated rock, which rises above the modern town 
of the same name. 

This rock is of sandstone capped with basalt ; its greatest length is a mile and 
a half, with an extreme breadth of nine hundred feet, and a height of nearly three 
hundred and fifty feet above the level of the plain. Its face is perpendicular, at some 
points the upper part overhanging the lower; and the ascent is by a steep road cut 
in the solid rock, and barred at intervals by five gates as formidable as those of a 
feudal fortress. 

The first of these gates is a superb Moorish triumphal arch, crowned with a 
story of colonnettes. Passing beneath it, the traveller enters upon the road, wide 
and well-kept, but of fatiguing steepness. Here begins for the archzologist a series 
of monuments, bas-reliefs, caverns, cisterns, ranged along the road as in a museum. 
The rocky wall on either side also demands attention ; it is excavated into numberless 
cells, many of them containing altars and statues, a reminiscence of the early her- 
mits who sheltered themselves here. Between the third and fourth gates are vast 
reservoirs for water, and here the sides of the road are covered with bas-reliefs of 
enormous size. Beyond the fourth gate is a little monolithic temple, believed to be 
of the fifth century. It consists of a square chamber with a peristyle in front of it, 
and is surmounted by a pyramidal spire. The upper part of this spire has been 
broken off, and is replaced by a little dome of masonry. 

As we reach the crest of the rock, the magnificent fagade of the Palace of King 
Pal (see page 183) rises before us. It is really a great dead wall, relieved by 
turrets at regular intervals, the only windows being in the very tops of these tur- 
rets; but bands of carved decoration, rows of arches, and a profusion of enamelled 
figures of every description, — Brahmins, elephants, peacocks, candelabra, in blue, brown, 
green, and gold,— give it an incomparable lightness and elegance. The bricks which 
form this ornamentation have a brillianey of color and delicacy of shading from which 
ten centuries have taken nothing away. 

Besides this palace there are two important temples in this ancient city, and 
many chapels; and the rock itself on which the city stands is cleft by a remarkable 
fissure, a hundred feet deep, whose perpendicular walls are lined with figures of every 
size, from the one ten or twelve inches in height up to the colossus of sixty feet. These 
statues have historical and religious significance. 

Returning to Agra, we suppose the traveller to follow a route leading nearly due 
west as far as Ambeer, thence in a southwesterly direction through some of the tribu- 
tary states of Western India, and coming out to the sea at Bombay. J 

An houwr’s drive from Agra, along a fine macadamized road, bordered by shade- 
trees, and curious old tombs surmounted by figures of horses in red sandstone, brings 
us to Secundra. This village, insignificant in itself, is held in high honor by Mus- 


{ 


SCENES 1N MANY LANDS. 185 


sulman and Hindoo, throughout all India, as the- place where repose the remains of 
the Emperor Akbar, the greatest native sovereign of the peninsula. The Mausoleum 
stands in the centre of an immense and very beautiful garden on the bank of the 
Jumna. The building itself, which rests upon a platform of white marble four hundred 
feet square, is in the form of a pyramid, and consists of five stories. The four lower 
ones are of red sandstone, the upper of polished white marble. ‘The first four stories 
are surrounded each by a row of elegant kiosques of red sandstone, and the upper story 


by a wall of white marble elegantly carved. Upon the upper floor, in broad day- 
a superb 


light, is the state sarcophagus, around which the crowd gathers to pray, 


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parallelogram of white marble, a masterpiece of carving, upon which are inscribed in 
relief, amid a very network of arabesques, the ninety names by which the Mussul- 
man religion calls upon God. The real sarcophagus, in which the emperor was 
buried, lies in a crypt beneath the centre of the building, bearing a single Arabic 
Inscription upon its lid. 

This mausoleum is the work of many reigns. Its foundation was laid by Akbar; 
his son, Jenanghir, added the stories in red sandstone, and Shah Jehan surmounted 
the edifice with its crown of marble. It thus stands as an admirable illustration of 


the most brilliant period of Indian architecture. 


186 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


Three days’ journey westward, across the rich English province of Agra, is the 
ancient city of Digh, which claims to have been a capital fifteen centuries before the 
beginning of the Christian era. It is now the second city in the Jat kingdom of 
Bhurtpore ; and in 1803, its superb fortifications, erected by King Souraj-Mull about 
a century before, enabled a few French officers in the service of Scindia, the Mah- 
ratta prince, to hold in check Lord Lake’s victorious army after the battle of Las- 
wari. This same monarch constructed, about 1725, a splendid palace, regarded as the 
best instance of modern Hindoo art. It is composed of many detached pavilions 
surrounded by a fine garden, and situated between two small lakes, outside the walls. 


The principal edifice is the Gopal Bhowan, built upon a high terrace on the 


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Palace of Cdépal Bhowan. 


shore of the western lake. Its water-front, which we present here, is very elegant, 
with its balconies and colonnades, and the two marble kiosques that make the angles. 
The garden is filled with orange and other fruit-trees, and its shady avenues are 
paved, and bordered by canals for irrigation. 

Leaving Digh, the traveller for a while finds himself in the midst of desolate, — 
stony plains, without any redeeming feature of beauty in the landscape. He soon, 


however, enters upon the mountain region of Mewat, and the approach to Ulwur, 


SCENES [N MANY LANDS. 187 


the capital of the little kingdom, is most picturesque. The city lies upon a low 
hill, crowning its top with palaces, and around it is an array of higher summits of 
singular outline and imposing height. Over all these hill-tops runs the chain of 
forts and bastions and walls which defend the town, while their slopes are brilliant 
with the richest vegetation. 

There are two beautiful palaces, but, as is usual in these Indian cities, a mau- 
soleum of some famous prince is the finest building of all. The illustration which 
we give below represents that of the Rajah Buktawur Sing, a work of the last 


century. It is entirely of marble, resting on a pedestal of red sandstone, and is 


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Mausoleum, Ulwur. 


surmounted by a dome of somewhat unusual outline, topped by a massive stone 
pinnacle. 

A journey of ten days, on horseback or on camels, through a delightful and 
varied country, brings us to Ambeer, the ancient queen of the mountains, founded by 
the Minas, the great aboriginal race of Upper India, and for many centuries their 
capital. Approaching Ambeer the road climbs a hill, winds through a dense wood, 
and suddenly coming out into open ground, reveals the mysterious valley lying far 


below. Let the reader imagine a deep crater whose sides are lined with a dense 


188 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


and gloomy jungle; in the centre a cone of verdure, serving as pedestal to a marble 
palace, fairy-like and radiant, before which would pale all the marvels of Granada 
or Seville; all around this cone, a silent and»deserted city, of which the meanest 


house is itself a palace; and lastly, a lake with blackish waters. Such is the first 


effect of Ambeer; but what is indescribable about it is the sensation which comes 


over the traveller, after a few minutes’ contemplation. Nothing so romantic, so mys-= 
’ Pp 5 ’ 


URDU AT ag on 


Golden Kiosque, Ambeer. 


terious was ever seen before; you ask yourself if it be not a dream from the Arabian 
Nights, and whether some one will not come suddenly to disturb the silence of this 
sleeping city, and cause some frightful mystery to spring from it. The palace espe- 
cially has something supernatural about it; the domes covered with plates of gold 
and of blue enamel, the turrets of marble of an ivory-yellow, the walls decorated with 
gilded balconies: surely this is the Palace of Scheherazade. 


wu 


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Hh 
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ts 


will 


CZ 


ew ih se 


2 (S55) es 


mnt DZ 


ZSOURT OF THE PALACE. OUDEYPOOR. 


{90 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


We add with regret that the sole inhabitants of this region of fairy-like mag- 


nificence are tribes and legions of the great hunouman, the largest of the Indian 
monkeys ! 

Between Ambeer and Bombay, the city of chief importance is Oudeypoor, the 
capital of Meywar, one of the states tributary to the British government, but retain- 
ing a native sovereign, called the Maha Rana, and known in his own domains by 
the imposing title “The Sun of the Hindoos.” 3 

The first view of the city is very striking, as the traveller approaches it. In 
the foreground a long line of forts, pagodas, and palaces is relieved against.a forest 
of gardens, behind which rises the city, a curious mass of towers, steeples, and kiosques, 
ascending a pyramidal hill; the summit bears a marble palace, shining white against 
the blue background .of the hills. Neither pen nor pencil can give an adequate idea 
of the beauty of this city, so well named Oudeypoor —“ the City of the Rising Sun.” 
Closely built up to the city walls are an extensive group of suburbs, where every 
hillock is covered with luxuriant gardens, adorned with kiosques and fountains. EHn- 
tering by a gateway flanked with bastions, we find ourselves on the edge of a mag- 
nificent bazaar. The houses are all built of stone, with flat, terraced roofs ; the shops 
are situated under arcades that border the street on each side, and have a neatness 
and regularity of aspect almost unknown in Oriental cities. 


The Palace of Oudeypoor, the largest and most magnificent in India, covers the 


entire crest of the hill which rises in the centre of the city, and the natural extent — 


of the ground not being sufficient, the Hindoo architects increased it by throwing 
out from one side of the hill an immense terrace, supported on three tiers of arches: 
this work is of such solidity that part of the palace rests on this “made land,” and 
the remainder of it is inclosed as a great court-yard, containing barracks and parks of 
elephants. ‘T'wo walls inclose the mass of buildings composing the palace, of which 


the entire length is more than two miles. 


The principal entrance is from the side of the city, — a beautiful marble gate, 


with three archways, crowned by an attic of extreme richness ; the panels, balconies, 


and domes are covered with decorations in exquisite taste, and without any intro- 


duction of idols. Within is the grand court-yard, on two sides of which are the royal © 


apartments; the walls are ornamented with galleries at each story, and the angles are 
occupied by octagonal towers, surmounted by cupolas. 

The height of the palace is a hundred and twenty-three feet, but the dazzling 
whiteness of the marble of which it is entirely composed, and the grand simplicity of 
the architecture, augment its proportions, and would lead one to believe it couble 
its actual size. | 

The interior of the palace harmonizes with the stately fagades, and is well suited 


to the requirements of a tropical climate; dark corridors, with gentle inclination, take 


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PROCESSION OF A MAHRATTA PRINCE. 


[92 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


the place of stairs, leading from story to story ; the large, well-lighted apartments 
have walls and floors of marble ; there are court-yards and fountains and flowers at 
every turn. The great halls are hung with draperies ; soft cushions and rugs cover 
the floors, and the walls glitter with mirrors and brilliant frescos. One of the rooms 
is decorated with an odd kind of mosaic, which makes the visitor smile, but is really 
no more absurd than the porcelain salons of Fontainebleau and other French palaces: 
its walls are covered with European plates and cups and saucers, the commonest 
crockery side by side with the most expensive Dresden, — a two-penny salt-cellar 
with a vase of Bohemian glass. Little did the Hindoo artist care what his materials 
cost; he looked only to the colors of them, and contrived to obtain from this het- 
erogeneous mass certain original and graceful effects. The frescos in many of the 
rooms are of great interest. They contain portraits of all the Ranas or sovereigns of 
Oudeypoor, and scenes of importance in the reign of each. Painted with care and 
with a remarkable skill in the use of color, they are valuable memoranda of the history 
and manners of this Indian race. 

The illustration (p. 191) represents one of those military processions, seen frequently 
in the west of India, where some Mahratta prince appears before his subjects with 
a splendor unknown elsewhere in the world. ‘The display commences with the native 
troops commanded by Huropean officers, then the Arab corps, the squadrons of Mah- 
ratta cavalry, the field artillery, the musketeers, the cannoneers mounted on drome- 
daries, and many thousand troops to swell the procession to as great length as 
possible. Then comes the royal standard-bearer, mounted on a superb elephant painted 
and covered with embroidered housings ; the man bears a flag of cloth of gold forty 
feet in length. Around him are a body of picked cavalry, specially charged with 
the defence of the standard. Armed with long lances and curved sabres, they are 
clad with extreme richness; their coats of crimson velvet, tight-fitting trousers, and 
pointed shoes, form as perfect a knightly costume as could be imagined. Some of 
them wear a light steel morion and Saracenic coat of mail; others have heavy cui- 
rasses of buffalo-skin richly ornamented. The tips of their lances are silvered, and 
their bucklers of rhinoceros-skin decorated with golden bosses. 

After them follow an immense drum-corps, with instruments of every size and 
form, more agreeable to see than to hear; and then the nobility of the kingdom on 
prancing horses, surrounded by their servants carrying banners, and by heralds loudly 
proclaiming the importance of their respective masters. To them succeed the high 
officials of the kingdom, ministers, high-priests, and courtiers. Each one of these 
personages is seated upon an elephant, whose gold-fringed covering reaches to the 
ground. ‘T'wenty or thirty elephants, proud of their adornments, thus defile, with 
grave and majestic air; most of them have trunk and forehead painted with fantas- 


tic designs, and wear on the head tall aigrettes of white plumes. Hach dignitary 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 193 


sits cross-legged in a superb houdah, and over him is held a splendid parasol, which, 
by its degree of richness, indicates his rank at court. 

Lastly comes the prince himself, preceded by his family, his sons and daughters 
seated upon elephants. The prince’s houdah is of solid gold, sparkling with gems. 


Dressed in crimson velvet and sparkling with diamonds, he sits on his embroidered 


| 


| 


ITAA i 


Pagoda. Bombay. 


cushions, and behind him is his principal minister, in costume as brilliant as his 
own. On each side of the elephant two men stand on the steps of the houdah 
waving peacock fans. One of the four is the royal herald, who displays a flag, and 
proclaims the dignity and valor of his master. The crowd falls prostrate as the ele- 
phant passes by. The animal, almost hidden under his trappings, seems like a moun- 


tain of gold and diamonds seen through the perfumed smoke of the censers borne 


194 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


before him, and the man in whose honor this parade takes place, sits aloft with 
impassive face and folded arms, most like the Hindoo conception of Divinity. 

A short distance west of Oudeypoor the traveller strikes the railway of the west 
coast, and in a few hours reaches Bombay, the most cosmopolitan city of India. 
The diversity of race among the inhabitants of Bombay is at once apparent. Besides 
the Hindoos, the sons of the soil, and the English, its conquerors, there is the Arab 
wrapped in his burnous, the Persian in black garments, with tall Astrakan cap, the 
Jaines and the Banyans with odd-shaped turbans, the Bhoras and Khodjas, the Abys- 
sinians with negro features, the long-robed Armenians, the Jews, the Parsees with their 
black mitres, the Scindes with square cap, and many others less easily recognized at 
sight. 


Differing from each other in religion, it may well be supposed that the people 


Native Cottages in Ceylon. 


of Bombay have their crowd of places of worship. The city is the residence of an 
English bishop, and a Roman Catholic vicar, and it contains numberless Parsee temples, 
where the sacred fire burns day and night. There are also Hindoo pagodas, of — 
which the one represented on page 193 has the chief claim to our admiration. But 
of all the great Indian cities Bombay offers least to the traveller in search of the 
picturesque. 

A sea-voyage down the Malabar coast in one of the English. steamers which 
ply between Bassorah, at the head of the Persian Gulf, and Singapore, the most 
southern port of the Malay peninsula, touching at the principal ports on the route, 
is a very agreeable and interesting journey. One never wearies of admiring the 
beautiful hills covered with dense forests, which succeed one another along the coast, 


—the low ground laden with the most luxuriant crops whose brilliant green con- 


SCENES [N MANY LANDS. 195 


trasts with the blue water of the Arabian sea, — and the little towns, with their white 
houses against the dark background of the wooded slopes. 

A brief delay in the open roadstead of Colombo, the capital of Ceylon, affords 
time for a short excursion into the country, where vegetation has all the luxuriance 
of the tropics, and several varieties of palms subserve to almost all the wants of 


the natives, whether in food, clothing, or lodging. (See page 194.) 


ails 


inn 
Mitre 


Interior of the Pagoda. Madura. 


On the eastern side of the great Indian peninsula is the region formerly known 
as the Carnatic, extending from Cape Comorin to the river Kistna. This is now in- 
cluded in the presidency of Madras, the portion of India most purely Hindoo and 
Brahminical, and it is here that we find the chief examples of a kind of architecture 


known to ethnologists as the Dravidian, and familiar to us as the “pagoda style.” 


\ 


196 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


These temples consist almost invariably of four parts: the central structure, usu- 
ally small and unimportant, in which the image or emblem of the divinity is placed; 
the porches, or mantapas, leading to this cell; the gate-pyramids, or gopuras; and 
the pillared halls, or choultries, used for various purposes, which are often of vast 
dimensions. Besides, there are always tanks of water used for sacred purposes, and 
usually many dwellings of priests, in the immediate neighborhood of the temple. 

The character of the Dravidian races is far inferior to that of the Aryan, and 
their religion has always been a degrading fetich-worship. They had no intellectual 
or moral aspirations to express in their sacred buildings, and offered to their divin- 
ities only a tribute of patient and minute toil. “To cut a chain of fifty links out 
of a block of granite,” says Fergusson, “and suspend it between two pillars, was 
with them a triumph of art. To hollow deep cornices out of the hardest basalt, and 
to leave all the framings, as if of the most delicate woodwork, standing free, was 
with them a worthy object of ambition, and their sculptures are still inexplicable 
mysteries, from our ignorance of how it was possible to execute them. All that 
millions of hands working through centuries could do, has been done, but with hardly 
any higher motive than to employ labor and to conquer difficulties, so as to aston- 


ish by the amount of the first and the cleverness with which the second was over- 


come—and astonished we are; but without some higher motive, true architecture 
cannot exist. The Dravidians had not even the constructive difficulties to overcome 
which enabled the medizyval architects to produce such noble fabrics as our cathe- 
drals. The aim of architects in the Middle Ages was to design halls which should 
at the same time be vast and stable, and suited for the accommodation of great 
multitudes to witness a lofty ritual. In their struggle to accomplish this, they de- 
veloped intellectual powers which impress us still through their works. No such 
lofty aims exercised. the intellectual faculties of the Hindoo. His altar and the statue 
of his god were placed in a dark cubical cell wholly without ornamentation, and he 
thought he had accomplished all his art demanded when he covered every part of 
his building with the most elaborate and the most difficult designs he could invent. 
Much of this ornamentation, it is true, is very elegant, and evidences of power and 
labor do impress the human imagination often even in defiance of our better judg- 
ment, and nowhere is this more apparent than in these Dravidian temples. It is in 
vain, however, that we look among them for any manifestation of those lofty aims 
and noble results which constitute the merit and the greatness of true architectural 
art. In nine cases out of ten these buildings are a fortuitous aggregation of parts, 
arranged without plan as accident dictated at the time of their erection.” 

At Madura, near the southern extremity of the peninsula, is a pagoda of great 
size, remarkable as containing the most beautiful choultry, or pillared hall, in all the 


‘Presidency. It was commenced in 1623, and finished in 1645, at an expense of more 


7? 
fi 


SCENES [IN MANY LANDS. tot 


than five millions of dollars. It is entirely of stone, three hundred and twenty feet 
long, eighty feet broad, and twenty feet from pavement to roof, which latter is formed 
of granite blocks resting upon the pillars. The hall consists of a nave and two side 
aisles, and the effect of these three great galleries is really superb. All the way 
down the nave, besides bas-reliefs and arabesques with which each column is loaded, 
the statues of Indian monarchs are detached in full relief from each, and the capi- 
tals are carved in representation of gigantic animals with fierce and menacing air, 


who seem ready to spring upon the offender who dares enter these sacred precincts. 


The illustration (page 195), drawn from a photograph, exhibits the entrance to this 


wonderful hall. 
If the temple at Madura contains the most elaborate ornamentation of any in 


southern India, that of Seringham (page 199) is unquestionably the largest and most 


harmonious. ‘The outside wall of the inclosure measures twenty-four hundred and sev- 


enty-five feet by twenty-eight hundred and eighty feet. There are ten great pyram- 
idal gates, or gopuras, and if the temple had been finished there would have been 
twenty, that is, four in‘each of the five concentric walls surrounding the small domed 
building which is regarded as the sanctuary. The date of this structure is surprisingly 
recent, work on it having been stopped by the ten years’ struggle between the English 
and French for the possession of Trichinopoly (1750-60). If we allow fifty years 
back of this date for the commencement of the building, we still bring the whole 
within the limits of the eighteenth century. 

Between the first and second walls, Hindoos of inferior caste are allowed to re- 
side; within the second inclosure none but Brahmins are permitted ; within the third 


are certain families of priests of Vishnu ; within the fourth are various small temples 


-and mantapas. One of these, called the thousand-columned mantapa, has sixteen 


columns in front and sixty-five in depth. They are spaced evenly ten feet apart from 
centre to centre, and as the hall is only from ten to fifteen feet high, it will be 
seen what a remarkable instance this is of misapplied labor. Hach pillar is, how- 
ever, a monolith, and they are all carved more or less elaborately, so that there is 
after all something very impressive about this wilderness of stone. The central in- 
closure, where rests in eternal slumber “the blue god,” Vishnu, is forbidden to ordi- 
nary mortals. The sanctuary in which he reposes is small and low, and surmounted 
by a dome of gilded copper. Within this inviolable inclosure are the kitchens where 


the divinity’s repast is sedulously prepared, and a whitish smoke arising from them is 
te is y preparea, 


all that betrays what goes on within. 


As a pendant to this gigantic Dravidian temple, we present on page 201 a pic- 
ture of a mosque standing in a garden just outside Trichinopoly ; simple and plain, 
it requires no description, and the contrast points its own moral. 


At Tanjore, a few miles from Trichinopoly, and connected with it by a railway 


198 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


built about 1860, there is an immense pagoda, not varying in any important respect 
from the type of that at Madura. There is also a famous palace of the Mahratta 
princes, represented on page 200, concerning which we shall give some details. 

“ Although, like all nations of Turanian race,” says Fergusson, “the Dravidians 
were extensive and enthusiastic builders, it is somewhat singular that till they came 
in contact with the Mahomedans, all their efforts in this direction should have been 
devoted to the service of religion. No trace of any civil or municipal building is 
to be found anywhere, though, from the stage of civilization that they had attained, 
it might be expected that such must have existed. What is even more remarkable 
is, that no castle or fortification dates from the days of the native rulers of the 
Carnatic. Most singular of all is the fact that they have no tombs. ‘They seem 
always to have burned their dead, and never to have collected their ashes, or raised 
any mounds or memorials to their departed friends or great men. No Dravidian 
tomb or cenotaph is known to exist anywhere. 

“When, however, the Dravidians came in contact with the Mussulmans, this state 
of affairs was entirely changed, in so far at least as the civil buildings were con- 
cerned. ‘The palaces, the elephant stables, and the dependencies of the abodes of their 
rajahs, rival in extent and in splendor the temples themselves, and are not surpassed 
in magnificence by the finest Mahomedan palaces. 

“One of the most interesting peculiarities of these civil buildings is that they 
are all in a new and different style of architecture from that employed in the tem- 
ples, and the distinction between the civil and religious art is kept up to the pres- 
ent day. The civil buildings are all in what we should call a pointed-arched Moorish 
style, picturesque in effect if not always in the best taste, and using the arch every- 
where and for every purpose. In the temples the arch is never used as an archi- 
tectural feature. In some places, in modern times, when they wanted a larger internal 
space than could be obtained by bracketing without great expense, a brick vault was 
introduced, —it may be said surreptitiously, for it is always concealed. Even now, in 
building gopuras, they employ modern beams supported by pillars as lintels, to cover 
the central openings in the upper pyramidal part, and this wood having decayed, 
many of the more modern exhibit symptoms of decay which are not observable in 
the older examples, where a stone lintel was always employed. But it is not only 
in construction that the Dravidians adhere to their old forms in temples. There are, 
especially, some gopuras erected within the limits of this century and erecting even 
now, which it requires a practised eye to distinguish from the older examples ; but 
with the civil buildings the case is quite different. It is not indeed clear how a 
convenient palace could be erected in the trabeate style of the temples, unless wood 


were very extensively employed, both in the supports and the roofs. My conviction 


a 


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SERINGHAM. 


PAGODA. 


200 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


is that this was really the case, and its being so, to a great extent at least, ac- 
counts for their disappearance.” 

With the Mussulman rule, however, begins the use of the arch in civil build- 
ings, and the Palace of ‘T’anjore is a fine instance of the later architecture of this 
semi-Moorish description. It was probably commenced in the latter part of the sey- 
enteenth century, but most of its buildings belong to the eighteenth, and some even 
to the nineteenth. The visitor is at first struck with the contrasts existing in it 
between the most abject poverty and a truly royal splendor. It will be remembered, 


however, that in India every rajah is surrounded by thousands of servants, who share 


Interior Court. Palace at Tanjore. 


his good or his bad fortune, and must be lodged under his roof. Hence the neces- 
sity for extensive apartments suited to these impecunious followers. 


Externally the palace makes no show; two gates, one of which is very lofty, 


giving entrance to elephants, and a seven-storied tower, —a curious specimen of Indo- 
Mussulman architecture, — alone distinguish the exterior of the royal dwelling from the 
huts which surround it. The main courtyard is surrounded, as in all native struc- 
tures, by dilapidated and filthy buildings, swarming with the crowd of the rajah’s de- 
pendants. But one thing gives an Oriental stamp to the place, the presence of a 


couple of fine living elephants, one on each side of the gate, on a platform of masonry, 


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MOSQUE NEAR TRICHINOPOLY. 


202 | VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


to which they are chained by the foot : majestic colossi, incorruptible guardians of 
the palace of a king. 

A quadrangular court far within (represented on page 200), contains the statue 
of Sivadji, the late rajah. The western fagade, of bricks and chunam, a kind of stucco 
made of calcined madrepore, is the purest and best specimen of Indo-Mussulman art 
under the native dynasty. The ornaments are remarkable for the elegance and variety 
of their design. On the side beneath which stands the marble statue of Sivadji, the 
archivolts, too heavily laden, and the columns, somewhat too massive, are not so sat- 
isfactory as the simpler arches and balconies of the other side. 

When the native princes, surrounded by their court and warriors, sat in state 
upon the granite block which now serves as a pedestal for the sculptured figure of 
the last Mahratta ruler, it must have been a fine and imposing display. The block 
measures twenty-seven feet in length by twenty in breadth, and nearly four in height; 
its sides are ornamented with bas-reliefs representing wars of demons. Here, formerly, 
justice was dispensed. The statue, the work of Chantrey, is extremely beautiful. 
The rajah is represented in the attitude of devotion, looking towards the temple. On 
the wall, behind the statue, is a bas-relief in stucco. 

The palace contains an arsenal and a library. The latter is rich in Tamu, 
Teloogoo, and Sanskrit manuscripts, written upon leaves of a kind of palm-tree ; it 
also contains many Huropean books of no special value. 

In all the architecture of the Palace of Tanjore one fact is brought constantly 
before the eye and mind—the hatred of the Hindoo for symmetry. All the arches 
differ among themselves in outline, and the most diverse ornaments succeed one an- 


~ 


other without harmony. 


On pages 203 and 205 we represent the Pagoda of Chillambaran, one of the — 


most venerated, and reputed to be one of the most ancient temples in southern India. 
Modern research has, however, been forced to relinquish the date of the sixth cen- 
tury, which was at one time relied on, and the tenth or eleventh century is now 
believed to be the earliest period to which any part of the building can be attrib- 
uted. The temple of Parvati, of which a gallery and staircase are represented on 
page 201, was added in the fourteenth or fifteenth century, and the hall of a thou- 
sand columns was almost certainly erected between 1595 and 1685. 

: Although this temple has been aggregated at different ages,” says the distin 
guished author of the “ History of Indian and Eastern Architecture,” to whom we 
have before referred, “and has grown by accident rather than design like those at 
Seringham and Tiruvalur, it avoids the great defect of those temples; for though 
like them it has no tall central object to give dignity to the whole from the out- 
side, internally the centre of its great court is occupied by a tank, round which the 


various objects are grouped without at all interfering with one another. The temple 


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PAGODA OF CHILLAMBARAN. 


204 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


itself is one important object to the eastward of it; the Parvati temple another, on 
the north, forming a pleasing pendant to the thousand-columned choultry at the 
south.” 

The exterior inclosure is formed by a wall more than thirty feet in height: 
more than ten feet thick at the base, it is reduced first at half and then at three 
quarters of its height, by about twenty inches on each side, so that at the top it is 
scarcely more than three feet in thickness. Externally it is all of hewn stone, but 
is said to be brick within. It is more than six thousand feet in circumference, and 
surrounded by a fine road bordered with cocoanut-trees. The four entrances are 
only breaks in the wall, and have no ornament. A second wall, less regular and 
much lower than the first, succeeds. This is partly of brick and partly of hewn 
stone. The interval between the two walls contains no building, but is filled with 
beautiful trees whose height serves as a scale by which to estimate the immense 
buildings within. 

In this second wall are the immense gopuras, one of which is represented in the 
illustration, page 205. These are four, of nearly equal size; their positions are not 
respectively regular ; their general form is a truncated pyramid, resting on a great 
rectangular mass of hewn stone covered with carvings, while the: whole upper part 
of the structure is of brick, ornamented with mouldings in stucco, and seven stories 
in height. The entire height is about one hundred and forty feet, thirty-five feet 
being hewn stone. What may be called the basement of these gopuras has verti- 
cal sides forming two stories, separated by mouldings and cornices, the whole coy- 
ered with grotesque carved figures that only photography could reproduce. In the 
lower story, each statue has a rectangular niche, never rounded above. ‘The niche 
is quite deep, surrounded by columns, and surmounted by a pediment, like a little 
temple. The divinities are of stone, and are either fully detached or in very high 
relief. They all seem to be of the same fine, light-colored sandstone, and cut out 
of a single block. Often, to increase the difficulty, they are cut out of the same 
block as the niche. As most of them are of larger than life-size, it will be readily 
seen what immense blocks must have been required for the work. These figures 
represent the numerous divinities that Hindoo superstition has created. Some have 
heads of elephants, of horses, or of oxen; others brandish a dozen arms. Many, 
appearing indifferent or sleepy, are seated on cushions, one leg pendent, the other 
drawn up under them. Hach niche is ornamented on the sides with columns or pilas- 
ters carved in arabesques or representing figures: these ornaments are in great variety, 
and in some cases are very elegant. The friezes which separate the stories or sur- 
mount them are rounded, forming a sort of projecting gutter, decorated with carved 
work, and beneath there is a succession of rude figures of birds, the stone between 


being also carved. 


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206 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


The second story of the basement is twice the height of the lower. Tt is much 
less decorated ; there are indeed great spaces wholly bare.. In the centre, near the 
door, are two great niches in brickwork, with three more on each side. These are 
much larger than those of the lower story, and contain grotesque figures of divinities. 
Those of the central niches are of colossal size. 

This basement, which we have thus described, is traversed by a great entrance-way 
or door, twenty-five feet high and fourteen feet broad. Its form is rectangular, and its 
roof consists of enormous stones supported by pilasters, and by four enormous mon- 
oliths, thirty feet high and twenty-eight inches in diameter. Without comparing these 
pillars to the obelisks of Egypt, we cannot but be amazed at their size and num- 
ber, each gopura having four. They are said to have been brought from a quarry 
thirty miles away, and must have been transported over sandy ground, no commu- 
nication by water being possible. Nothing but the religious fanaticism of India could, 
like that of Egypt, have executed such labors, and, in addition, we must suppose an 
advanced condition of science, that the labor of many men could have been concen- 
trated to effect such results. 

These four monoliths are not carved, perhaps to show that each is a single 
stone ; but the pilasters are a mass of the richest work, and so are the columns of 
the two lateral entrances, and the vaults overhead. All the carving has been done 
with the utmost care, and the edges are as sharp as if finished yesterday. 

Above this massive base rise the seven stories of the gopura. The first six are 
alike, though retreating as they ascend. Besides a frieze, each story has its walls 
ornamented with columned niches, in which there are statues ; ascending, the dimen- 
sions grow less, and the character changes slightly. Hach story also has little 
structures built out at the angles. All these small temples, borne by the large one, 
are mingled with statues sometimes much larger than life-size, making discordant 
gestures, and having traces of brilliant paint upon them. Hach story, up to the 
seventh, also has a door serving to give light to its interior. The seventh story is 
a sort of round-roofed house, covered with a similitude in stucco of round or pointed 
tiles, surmounted by those flattened balls ending in a point which are seen on mosques. 
These balls are of stucco, like the rest, but are said to have been formerly of gold. 
Upon the very top of the building there is a hideous figure of great size; it has 
an enormous mouth with pointed teeth, two of them curved tusks, pointed ears, and 
on the head two horns. The eyes are great white balls, very projecting, and sur- 
rounded with red and yellow. 

The study of this gopura is a course in Hindoo theogony. The whole Indian 
Olympus is depicted here: Brahma, with his five heads and four arms; Vishnu, “the 
blue god,” sitting upon the folds of a serpent, whose five heads cover him like a 


canopy ; Siva, white and livid, with the hideous head above described. Among the 


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208 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


statues are the numerous incarnations of Vishnu, — when he transformed himself into 
a fish or a tortoise, when he had flames upon his head, and the like. Other divini- 
ties have elephants’ trunks; one is mounted on a paroquet. Some have five to ten 
heads and four to eighteen arms, all holding weapons or symbols ; they are black, 
red, green, or blue; a few only are flesh-colored. All these figures wear pointed 
mitres, sometimes three or four stories high, painted in bright colors; all have many 
bracelets, above the elbow as well as below it, and wear great rings, not only in 
the ears but around them. 

To give a clearer idea of these carvings, with their high relief and infinite 
diversity, we present on page 207 a section from a gopura at Triputry, of the same 
design and finish as those of Chillambaran. This gopura belongs to an entirely de- 
serted temple, about a hundred miles further inland. 

Within the second inclosure at Chillambaran, besides the various buildings, there 
is the ghaut, or sacred tank (page 205), without which no religious edifice, or even 
village or hamlet, is complete in India: for all castes subject to the law of Manu 
are required to perform many ablutions daily. This tank is a quadrilateral three hun- 
dred feet in length and two hundred and _ fifty feet in breadth, surrounded by a broad 
granite staircase giving access to a gallery of great height. There is nothing more 
curious than the aspect of one of these fish-ponds in the morning, when the natives, 
lightly clad, come silently, with devout air, rubbing their teeth with a prescribed root, 
and bearing a small copper vase in one hand, to perform their religious duties. At the 
water’s edge they make numerous prayers, accompanied by many genuflections; then 
laying aside their garments, they bathe, pouring water over their heads from the copper 
vase. 

In the centre of a group of buildings on the left of the great gopura is the sanc- 
tuary of Vishnu. Here is the figure of the divinity, half the size of life, seated upon 
his serpent, and surrounded by flowers and garlands of jasmine. Many lamps filled 
with cocoanut-oil are burning in this shrine, which has no windows or means of ven- 
tilation, and has an atmosphere endured with difficulty even for a few minutes. Hither 
the brahmims repair at nightfall, and place themselves in rows on each side of the sanc- 
tuary, some advancing and prostrating themselves before the idol. Meanwhile a bell 
rings at intervals, and the priests chant responsively in a nasal tone. 

In another sanctuary, consecrated to Bramh, there is no figure; five pillars of 
sandal-wood adorn the entrance. In the opinion cf some these pillars represent the 
five elements, the wind being the fifth ; according to otners they represent the five 
classes of priests. Highteen other columns of the same wood, placed before the grating, 
represent the eighteen Puranas, or cosmogonic poems of the Hindoos. <A throne 
covered with plates of gold, stands within the sanctuary, and over it hangs a deep 


violet curtain. ‘This curtain is called the Impenetrable Mystery, and covers what they 


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MAUSOLEUM. GOLCONDA. 


210 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


denominate the “Splendor of Grace,” the Supreme Being, infinite, invistble, the First 
Cause, Bramh, whom nothing escapes, who can be represented in no way, whom Brahma 
himself adores. cs 
Chillambaran, like all the centres of Brahminic worship, has its solemn proces- 
sions; here they occur by night rather than by day, and nothing can be imagined 
more picturesque than these scenes, beneath the cocoanut-trees of the first melosure. 
The image of the god is enthroned on a huge scaffolding, twenty-five or thirty 
feet high, entirely covered with jasmine flowers, their lustrous white shining in the 
torch-light against the dark sky and masses of trees. Twenty or thirty men bear 
this shrine upon their shoulders, and are preceded by four elephants, shaking their 


great ears and waying their trunks above the crowd. Then follow huge trays of 


———— 


ALEXANDRE BAK s 


Rock-hewn Temples. Mahavellipore. 


woven branches, filled with vases in which cocoanut bark is burning, lighting up the 
under side of the foliage of the trees with its sparkling and fitful flame, while troops 
of men. carry torches of the same substance or of cotton dipped in the oil of the 
cocoanut. The crowd gather close around this procession, and in their white gar- 
ments add still more to the picture; while overhead, the cocoanut-trees offer infinite 
variety of graceful outline and masses of light and shadow. 

Our series of illustrations of Dravidian architecture would be incomplete without 
an example of the rock-cut temples, which are the most ancient remains of this 


“yaths ” of Mahavellipore are of as early date as the fifth or 


remarkable style. The 
sixth century of our era, and they appear to be copies in stone of earlier wooden 


structures designed as monasteries. Situated on an open sea-beach, a few miles from 


Madras, they have been much visited and often described ; but much of their mys-_ 


tery is still undeciphered. In some respects they are the most marvellous work of 


SCENES [IN MANY LANDS. 211 


human hands existing. Let the reader imagine a sandy plain, out of which rise 
isolated granitic rocks of various height and size. Upon these masses of granite, 
human labor has been expended until they have assumed the form of elaborate temples, 
covered with inscriptions without; and even in a degree excavated ‘within, as though 
they were structures raised in the usual way. Four of them stand in a line, north 
and south, and seem to have been all carved out of the same rock, which must in 
that case have been between - thirty-five and forty feet high at its southern end, 
sinking to half that height at the northern extremity, and its width diminishing in 
like proportion. 

The two illustrations represent this range of four temples ; the one on page 210 


taking them from the north, the other from the south. The first on the north is a 


Rock-hewn Temples. Mahavellipore. 


mere cell, eleven feet square externally and sixteen feet high. The second is a 
small copy of the fourth, and measures eleven feet by sixteen in plan, and twenty 
feet in height. The third is very remarkable ; it is an oblong building, with curvi- 
linear-shaped roof with a straight ridge. Its dimensions are forty-two feet long, 
twenty-five feet wide, and twenty-five feet high. Externally its carving is completed, 
but internally it is only partially excavated, the work apparently having been stopped 
by an accident. It is cracked completely through, so that daylight can be seen 
through it, and several masses of rock have fallen to the eround. This has been 
ascribed to earthquakes and to other causes, but it appears more probable that it was 
due to the inconsiderateness of the architect of this curious structure. Having com- 
pleted the exterior, he proposed to excavate the interior so as to make it resemble a 


structural building of the same class, leaving only such pillars and supports as would 


be enough to support a wooden roof of the same dimensions. But in this case the 


212 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


roof was a mass of solid granite, which, had the interior been excavated as pro-— 
posed, must have crushed the lower story into powder. As it was, the builders eyvi- 
dently took the hint, and ceased further work. The last of the series is the largest — 
and most remarkable. Its dimensions are twenty-seven feet by twenty-eight in plan, 
and thirty-four feet in height. The upper part is ‘entirely finished with its seulp- 
tures, the lower part merely blocked out. 

Near these temples are yarious animal figures: a colossal zebra partly buried in 
sand, a lion, and an elephant. In more or less neighborhood to this group are rocks 


covered with figures in high relief, and caves excavated from the rock, filled with 


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Mosque. Triplican. 


marvels of sculpture. The inscriptions are in Sanskrit. The figures are, as usual, — 
images of Hindoo gods— Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, but all in forms more subdued — 
than are found elsewhere. ‘The one extravagance is that the divinities have four _ 
arms — neyer more—to distinguish them from ordinary mortals. “It is the sober-— 


est and most reasonable version of the Hindoo Pantheon yet discovered,” says Fer- 


gusson, “and consequently one of the most interesting, as well as probably the 
earliest.” 


This region is almost entirely Hindoo, but there are yet a few Mohammedans, — 


er ae 


mn 


Ui ili 


— 


. ~ CAR OF JUGGERNAUT. 


214 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


especially in the cities, and there is a mosque of much importance at 'Triplican, near 
Madras. (See page 212.) 

North of the Presidency of Madras, in the central portion of the Deccan, lies 
a region of about a hundred thousand square miles in extent, known as the Nizam’s 
Territory. The government is Mohammedan, although the people are Hindoo. The 
present Nizam is the descendant of Azof Jah, an officer of the court of Delhi, who, 
being governor of this province in 1719, made himself independent, and founded a 
state which has subsisted till the present time. 

Seven miles from his capital, Hyderabad, is the ancient city of Golconda, of 
which nothing is now left but the large, strong fortress crowning a rocky eminence, 
within the walls of which the Nizam keeps his jewels, and the tombs of the ancient 
kings of Golconda, some six hundred yards distant from the fortress. In passing, 
it is worth notice that the name of this city has become world-renowned on a curi- 
ously false notion of its diamond mines, which is quite as unfounded as it would 
be to speak of the gold mines of San Francisco. The territory of the Nizam was 
once famous for furnishing a considerable proportion of the diamonds of the world, but 
the mines have become unproductive and are no longer worked. When they did 
exist, however, they were not in Golconda, but in Parteall, some distance further 
south, and were merely cut and polished in the city. Golconda was, in the six- 
teenth and seventeenth centuries, the capital of a powerful kingdom, and the tombs 
of these kings are extremely splendid, forming one of the most striking groups of 
Indo-Saracenic architecture now existing. 

They are square buildings resting on a rectangular granite platform. The first 
story is of granite ; upon this rests a second, partly of stone, partly of brick, the 
corners formed by octagonal brick pillars, supporting little minarets terminating in 
balls. This second story is surmounted by a spheroidal dome of the Arab shape. 
Within, in the centre of a vast unornamented hall, is placed the mausoleum of black 
marble, covered with verses from the Koran, cut in relief. Notwithstanding its extreme 
simplicity, this black mausoleum, under a vast white dome, is of striking effect. Most 
of the pillars are octagonal, and different portions of the edifice have bands of enamelled 
bricks of bright colors. In some of the tombs, the entire dome is covered with this 
brilliant enamel glittering beneath the tropical sun. . 

We now reach the Presidency of Bengal, the most eastern part of India proper ; 
and here we come to a very ancient and peculiar architecture, of which an example is 
given, page 215. Much difficulty exists in finding a suitable name by which to des- 
ignate this architecture, and the term Indo-Aryan has been used, as less objectionable 
than any other, while it is still in a degree unsatisfactory. There is no trace of 
external Aryan affinities in this style; in fact, no other style is so purely local and 


aboriginal. All that can be said is that it was invented and used in a country the 


MOSQUE AT HOOGLY. 


216 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


Aryans once occupied, and on which they had left a strong imprint of their superior 
mental power and civilization. 

The Indo-Aryan structures have always the pyramidal form with cnrvilinear out- 
line ; there is no division into stories, no suggestion of habitations, no pillars or pilas- 
ters anywhere. Neither the pyramid nor the tumulus afford any hint as to the 
origin of the form; nor does the tower, either square or circular; nor does any 
form of civil or domestic architecture. It does not seem to ke derived from any 
of these; and whether we consider it as beautiful or otherwise, it seems certainly to 
have been invented, principally at least, for esthetic purposes, and to have retained that 
impress from the earliest to the present day. “ My impression is,” says Fergusson, “ that 
if the great table-lands of Bengal, and their surrounding valleys, coull be examined, 
much older forms of these temples could be discovered,— some, perhaps, so old as to 
betray the secret of their origin; but till this is done, the Bengali devala must be rele- 
gated, like the Irish round towers, to the category of unexplained architectural puzzles. 

In connection with these Indo-Aryan structures are found certain great cars, of 
pyramidal shape, devoted to the transportation of the idol. ‘They were originally 
altogether of stone, except a brick dome at the top; but alas! everything has degen- 


> and even a Car of Juggernaut is not so heayy as 


erated since the “good old times,’ 
it once was! They are now of wood, but being something like thirty feet long and 
equally broad, and of enormous height, they still require thousands of men, drawing 
upon six strong cables, to moye them along the road from the temple to the pleasure- 
garden where the divinity takes his airmg. The illustration on page 213 represents, 
however, the primitive type, as existing to this day in the ruins of Bidjanuggur. 
Captain Mundy, an English officer who visited the temple in 1829, gives a viva- 
cious account of his view of the idols on occasion of their airing in the car, “an 


event which,” 


he says, “fortunately occurs but twice a year.” 

“Their godships were formed up in line, on an elevated terrace within the en- 
closure, and protected from the night dews by an extensive and gaudy canopy of ° 
many-colored cloths. The evening was dark, and at intervals blue lghts were thrown 
up, to enable the spectators to yiew the ceremony; but the idols being almost con- 
stantly hidden by a forest of chouries and hand-punkahs diligently agitated by the 
attendant Brahmins, to prevent the flies and mosquitoes from invading their sacred 
noses, we sent a polite message to the Raj-Goru, or chief priest, requesting that he 
would cause the officials to open out for an instant to the right and left in order to 
afford us the satisfaction of contemplating the expressive countenances of the wor- 
shipful trio. Our embassy succeeded ; the crowd fell back from before them; two 
brilliant lights were illumined, and we saw distinctly three frigatful wooden faces, of 
the respective colors of black, brown, and yellow, the lower portions of the figures being 


closely swathed in cloth wrappers.” 


a 


SCENES [NV MANY LANDS. 217 


“The following day the idols were again consigned to their niches in the temple. 
Upon this occasion it is the annual custom for Juggernaut to declare himself to be 
en petite santé, from the effects of a severe cold, consequent, probably, upon his bath, 
which continues to afflict him until the day when, by the wise treatment of his physi- 
cians, he is restored to his usual good health !” 


The city of Calcutta, though a large and important place, has less architectura} 


li 


Pagoda near Kuttack. 


importance than any of the great Indian capitals. We shall therefore pass it by, and. 
giving a picture of the splendid mosque at Hoogly, a few miles out of Calcutta on 
the north, we shall conclude our illustrations of India, where so many of Art’s greatest 
treasures are gathered, with Nature’s grandest marvel, the Mountain Gaurisankar, the 
- culminating point of the earth’s surface, a peak which rises to the height of twenty- 


nine thousand and two feet above the level of the sea. 


218 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


i 


1 
Hy 


Gaurisankar. 


At the base of the great Himalaya range lies the valley of the Ganges, parallei 
with it for twelve hundred miles, and affording access to much of its grandest scenery. 
Bleven hours by rail from Calcutta, four hours in a river steamboat, a hundred and 
twenty-four miles in a dak gharri, or mail-cart, then fourteen miles on horseback or in 


a palanquin to the foot of the lower hills, and by similar means to the top of them, 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 219 


bring the traveller to Darjiling, a point whence is obtained a magnificent view of 
the very highest peaks of this mighty range. 

“Unfortunately,” says Andrew Wilson, “ Gaurisankar, the loftiest mountain of all, 
is out of the reach of nearly all travellers, owing to our weakness in allowing Nepaul 
to exclude Englishmen from its territory ; but if any one is very anxious to try 
Chinese Thibet, he will find one of the doors into it by going up from Darjiling, 
through the protected state of Sikkim; but whether the door will open at his 
request is quite another thing, and if he kicks at it, he is quite likely to find him- 
self suddenly going down the mountains faster than he went up them. Verbum sat 
sapientibus ; but if one could only get through this door, it is a very short way 
from it to Lassa, the capital of Thibet, — which, possibly, is the reason why it is kept 
so strictly guarded. 

“Gaurisankar and the highest peaks of the Himalaya are on the border between 
Nepaul and Thibet, and form a group somewhat obtruding from the line of the main 
range. It is provoking that the weak foreign policy of the Indian government, a 
policy, however, which has been very much forced upon it from home, should allow 
the Nepaulese to exclude English travellers from their territory. This policy places 
about five hundred miles out of the reach of the English traveller, though these five 
hundred miles contain the culminating point of the whole range, the most splendid 
jewel in the ‘stony girdle of the earth.’” 

Though denied to the English, travellers of other nations have succeeded in 
making their way into this closely guarded region ; and the illustration on page 218 
is reproduced from a sketch made upon the spot by Schlagintweit. 

A first view of the Himalaya Mountains is described by Wilson with enthusi- 
asm. “From Landaur,” he says, “a sea of mist stretched from my feet, veiling, but 
not altogether concealing, ridge upon ridge of dark mountains, and even covering the 
lower portions of the distant great wall of snow. No sunlight as yet fell upon this 
dark yet transparent mist, in which the mountainous surface of the earth, with its 
black abysses, seemed sunk as in a gloomy ocean, bounded by a huge coral-reef. 
But above this, dazzling and glorious in the sunlight, high up in the deep _ blue 
heavens, there rose a white, shining line of gigantic ‘icy summits reared in air.” Noth- 
ing could haye been more peculiar and striking than the contrast between the wild 
mountainous country below — visible, but darkened as in an eclipse —and these lofty 
domes and pinnacles of eternal ice and névé. No cloud or fleck of mist marred their 
surpassing radiance. very glacier, snow-wall, icy aiguille, and smooth-rounded snow- 
field, gleamed with marvellous distinctness in the morning light, though here and _ there 
the sunbeams drew out a more overpowering brightness. These were the Jumnotri 
and Gangotri peaks, the peaks of Badrinath and of the Hindoo Kailas ; the source of 


220 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


mighty sacred rivers; the very centre of the Himalaya; the Himmel or Heaven of the 
Teuton Aryans, as well as of Hindoo mythology.” | 

The story of the expedition to which we owe the sketch here reproduced, is one 
of the deepest interest. Adolf Schlagintweit, with his brothers Hermann and Rob- 
ert, all three distinguished at the university for their Alpine explorations, were recom- 
mended by Bunsen and Humboldt to the English government as suitable persons to 
take charge of the magnetic survey of India, left incomplete by the death of Cap- 
tain Elliot in 1852. The English government supplied them liberally with money 
and instruments, and they sailed from Southampton, September 20, 1854. Landing at 
Bombay, they separated, and proceeded by different. routes to Madras, making scien- 
tific observations on the way. ‘Thence, early in the following year, they sailed for 
Calcutta, and on the 25th of March, Adolf and Robert entered upon their first Hima- 
layan journey. From this time until October they explored the passes and glaciers 
of the range, reaching at one time an elevation of twenty-two thousand two hun- 
dred and sixty feet, the greatest height ever attained by any European traveller. In 
the latter part of autumn they. came down to Agra, and Adolf proceeded alone to 
Madras. 

In April, 1856, the three brothers, rejoining one another after independent explora- 
tions in Central India, again forced their way into the midst of the Himalayan giants, 
and passed the summer in making new researches. At the close of the year Robert 
returned to Hurope by way of Bombay, and Hermann by way of Calcutta, Adolf 
remaining to pursue his researches further in Thibet and Turkestan. But the deci- 
sion was a fatal one. In March, 1857, he crossed the Bara-Lacha Pass into Thibet, 
and proceeded to Kashgar; and here, in August, he was killed by the Turkomans. 
His journal, consisting of a hundred and thirty-five closely written pages, and bear- 
ing date up to August 11, was recovered by the English government ; it describes 
a region never before visited by any scientific traveller. . 

The two surviving brothers have in preparation a complete narrative of the ex- 
pedition, in nine quarto volumes, with maps and views, which will doubtless be, when 
completed, a work of unrivalled importance, containing as it does the results of three 


years exploration of the loftiest and most inaccessible mountains on the globe. 


. SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 221 


‘HE yast regions which, in the form of a double peninsula, lie 
between the Bay of Bengal and the China Sea, are scarcely 
known, except upon the coast, the interior presenting a field for 
useless and wearisome conjectures.” It is more than sixty years 
since Malte-Brun wrote these lines concerning the country at 
which we have now arrived, in our journey around the world. 
The learned geographer was well aware that the general relief of this 
region was formed by four chains of mountains, beginning in Thibet, 
extending themselves towards the south, and enclosing between their 
parallel escarpments three long and superb valleys, watered each by its 
great river; but he adds that these rivers were as yet almost entirely 
unexplored. 

The six decades, so fruitful in discovery, which have passed over 
the work of Malte-Brun, have raised in a great degree the veil that 
once concealed Indo-China from our eyes. ‘T'wo successive Burman 
wars have opened to the English the valley of the Irrawaddy; they 
have explored it as conquerors, and have reduced its southern half to the condition 
of a province. The length and breadth of Siam has been traversed by European and 
American travellers, and a French expedition has examined the whole course of the 
Makong as far as the Chinese frontier, giving special attention on their way to the 
ruined cities of Cambodia, the most remarkable architectural remains in the whole 
peninsula. Besides this, all the great Christian sects have had, and still have, mis- 
sions in Indo-China, many of them possessing established places of worship in Burmah 


and Siam. 


222 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


The illustration on the opposite page represents the Great Pagoda of Rangoon, 
seen from a distance, crowning the city with its elegant conical roof and gilded top. 
The town itself extends about a mile along the river, and the streets are narrow, 
but clean and well-paved. The houses are rude bamboo huts, but there are a few 
built of brick, belonging to Europeans, and since its occupation by the English the 
place has been fortified. From Rangoon, which is the principal seaport of Burmah, 
the traveller ascends the Irrawaddy, and at every mile admires the variety and beauty 
of the landscape. Between the river and the foot of the mountain-chains which 
define its basin, lie broad strips of low ground displaying the greatest luxuriance of 
vegetation. The villages are numerous and pleasing; often the sombre mass of a 
monastery, with its triple stories, commands the cabins and trees of the foreground, 
while in the middle distance rise low hills covered with dry grass, and crowned with 
pagodas to which winding paths lead up from every direction. | 

Approaching the ancient city of Pagan, the river seems to widen. The eastern 
shore is superb with vegetation. It is a succession of richly wooded valleys, and 
groups of palm-trees sheltering the villages. The first glimpse of Pagan shows an 
immense dome, -—the Tsetna-Phya; then, glittering pyramids, rising one above another, 
and surmounting roofs resplendent with gilding ; dark, gloomy temples, square and 
solid, whence spring bell-towers shaped like a mitre ; and lastly, a crowd of: cupo- 
las, black and white, grotesque and fantastic, amid houses, palm-trees, fields, and 
gardens. 

Seen from the river, the effect of this architecture is so strange and whimsical 
that one feels as if he were in a dream. lJLanding, the traveller finds his interest 
and curiosity increased. But little has been written about Pagan, although it is a 
eity of much importance; and it was here, amid the ruins of an earlier time, that, 
on the 8th of February, 1826, the Burman army made its last stand against the 
Kinglish invaders. 

The ruins of Pagan cover a space of six miles in length and a mile and a 
half in width, along the river-bank. The number of temples, either ruined or still 
standing, is not far from a thousand. They are of great variety : pagodas in shape 
of a bell, of a button, of a pumpkin, and of an egg; Buddhist temples, and relic- 
houses, with all the modifications possible to such structures, but having a certain 
similarity of general outline. For the most part these edifices are of cubic form ; 
within, a great chamber with vaulted roof; at the main entrance, a great, projecting 
porch ; on the eastern side, two lateral doors. The plan has the form of a cross; 
the building rises in successive terraces, ending in a spire which is often a kind of 
pyramid, swelling out half-way up. These constructions are of brick coyered with 


plaster. The interior walls and chapels are similarly coated, and richly decorated in 7 


ay 


oS 
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I) 


Ss 


SS 
= 


GRAND PAGODA OF RANGOON 


224. VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


fresco. Such is, in general, the type of these temples, which vary in size from eighty 
to eight hundred square yards. 

Their most remarkable features are the idols they contain, — colossal images thirty 
feet high, and all resembling one another. The only difference among them is in 
attitude : some preach, others pray, others give their benediction. Standing upon 
pedestals of wood carved to resemble a lotus-flower, they face the entrance of the 
chapels, which are all adorned with magnificent gates twenty-one feet high. These 
wooden gates are marvels of carving, representing leafage of the most exquisite finish. 
The immense niche in which the statue stands is sometimes nearly fifty feet high ; 
a decoration of gilded metal surrounds it, having the effect of lacework. At the top 
of the niche, a concealed window pours a flood of light upon the head and shoul- 
ders of the idol, which, covered with gold, seems swimming in a sea of light. This 
brilliant vision, in the depths of the gloomy chapel, is imexpressibly effective. 

The pagodas are all built of bricks cemented with mud. It is difficult to imagine 
buildings of this kind attaining a height of nearly two hundred feet; but they are 
almost solid masses, so that the corridors and arched roofs seem excayations. The 
work has been so- carefully done, besides, the joming of the bricks is so perfect, 
that it is difficult to introduce between them the blade of a knife. ‘The entire sur- 
face is covered with plaster, and where this coating remains firm, the buildings are 
in good condition; where it has given way they have fallen into ruin. 

The temple of Shwé-Zergoug (page 225) is one of the most celebrated in the 
kingdom. Every Burman must visit it at least once in his life. Colonel Burney, 
who visited Ava in 1830, asserts that it was founded by the forty-second king of 
Pagan, Nauratha Men-zan, about the year 1064 of the Christian era, and was finished 
by his successor. ‘There is kept in the temple a fac-simile of a tooth of Gauda- 


ma,—a tooth for which the king sent an army to China. ‘The holy relic, as large 


as an elephant’s tusk, eluding the invitation, preferred to remain in China, and the . 
king was forced to content himself with a miraculous duplicate. 

Amarapoora, the Burman capital, is built upon ground but slightly elevated above 
the river, and in the rainy season is nearly cut off from the mainland by the rise 
of the water. It is surrounded by a wall and moat, but its defences are of little 
importance, and would offer no resistance to modern artillery. The streets intersect 
one another at right angles, and divide the city into regular squares. The palace 
stands in the centre, and its walls are believed to be exactly parallel with the city 
ramparts. | 

North of this building -is the Palace of the Lord White Elephant, behind which 
are the common apartments of his Highness, and the stables occupied by the ordinary 
elephants, belonging to the king. Captain Yule, of the Bengal Engineers, describes 


the animal living at. the time of his visit as more than fifty years of age, of enor- 


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226 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


mous size, but meagre and ill-conditioned, and of a truly royal uncertainty of temper. 
This elephant was of the color of the spots which are seen on the trunk and ears of 
the ordinary animal, and well merited his title of “white.” His royal paraphernalia, 
which is exhibited to visitors, was truly magnificent ; his driving-hook, about forty 
inches long, was encrusted thickly with pearls; the handle was of crystal, with gold 
ornaments and two or three bands of rubies. His tiara of cloth of gold was adorned 
with great rubies and superb diamonds, and circles of “the nine precious stones which 
turn away malign influences” rested on his forehead. | 

When the animal is in grand costume, like the great Burman dignitaries and the 
king himself, he wears on his head a gold badge on which are inscribed all his titles, 
and between his eyes a crescent of large gems. ‘'o his ears hang enormous silver 
tassels, and he is caparisoned with scarlet silk embroidered with pure gold. A fief 
belongs to him, and a special officer of high rank; he has four golden umbrellas, and 
a household of thirty persons. Before entering his palace, the Burmans lay aside their 
shoes. 

The capture of a white elephant is frequently announced, and causes great ex- 
citement at court. But usually, on investigation, it appears that they are only pre- 
tenders, to the king’s great regret ; for the capture of a genuine white elephant is a 
consecration by nature of the reign in which the event occurs. In 1831, one was taken 
which was white enough to require great respect and an establishment second only 
to the real White Elephant. But the government was at that time paying off the 
indemnity of the peace of Yanabo, and was obliged to appropriate to this purpose 
the revenues of the new-comer. A deputation presented with great pomp to the 
animal a letter from the king, begging his pardon for the unintentional disrespect, 
and assuring him that the whole sum should be reimbursed within two months. 

Exactly in what light the white elephant is regarded by Burmans of intelligence 
is a thing not easily ascertainable ; but there seems reason to believe that he is 
considered merely as a traditional attendant upon royalty, like the cream-colored 
horses which draw Queen Victoria’s carriage when she goes to open or prorogue 
Parliament. ; 

The streets of Amarapoora are broad, and clean enough in the dry season. But 
in the rains the mud becomes intolerable, and almost prevents access to some quar- 
ters of the city. Most of the houses are constructed of bamboo, raised upon posts. 
Along the principal streets, a few feet in front of the houses, runs a row of pali- 
sades, neatly made and whitewashed. The posts supporting them are crowned with 
flower-pots, and shrubs grow in abundance between the palisades and the house. The™ 
yaja-mat, or king’s palisade, is designed to prevent the crowd from disrespectfully 
embarrassing the passage of royalty, and even from looking upon his sacred person; 


for the proverb, “A cat may look at a king,” does not seem in force in Burmah, 


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228 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


This system of palisades gives an air of neatness to the city, but as it hides both 
shops and people from view, that is to say all that is most interesting to the stran- 
ger, it gives a character of great monotony; and it is only when, mounted upon an 
elephant’s back, he can overlook these barriers, that he is able to form an idea of 
the really crowded capital. 


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The illustrations, pages 227 and 229, represent two of the most remarkable ex- 
amples of Burman architecture, situated at a little distance from the city. They were 
built, one by the present queen-dowager, the other by her daughter, the wife of the 
reigning king; and their recent construction explains their yet perfect preservation, 
despite the rapid decay of all wooden buildings in a country like Burmah. 

Within their enclosure are numberless monasteries and chapels ; in the centre is 
a kyoung, or vast sanctuary, about three hundred feet in length. Its one story 
extends like a wide terrace, on which the various lesser structures rear their quad- 
ruple roofs. From the balcony upward all is gilded ; coping, balusters, and roofs 
are covered with sculptures. But it is especially in two little buildings near the 
central kyoung that the Burman artists have displayed all the luxury of their imagi- 
nation. 

In the Maha-Toolut-boungyo, the sanctuary retains the form usual in monasteries, 
but it is carved as if it were an ivory shrine, and almost covered with the richest 
gilding. The coping, carved to represent gigantic imperial crowns, is supported by 
fantastic dragons, which, with bent heads, appear to gnaw at the beams they grasp 
in their mighty claws, while their tails seem to wave in the air. 

The quadruple roofs, covered with zine, glitter as if they were of silver; and the 
walls, encrusted with mosaics, glass, and gilding, sparkle like a sea of light covered 
with a golden network. Even the ladders which serve to give access from one roof 
to another, are covered with gold and glass. Along the basement is a series of 
curious carvings, representing types of different nations, — Burmans, Chinese, and one 
Englishman! The latter, with his dog and gun, is an amusing caricature, not entirely 
destitute of truth. In the interior of the building are curious figures of animals 
conversing among themselves, recalling illustrations of Lia Fontaine. 

The Maha-comiye-peima, resembling the other in general plan, is even more elabo- 
rate and splendid. In this edifice the three bell-towers are not gilded, doubtless in 
consequence of the civil wars of 1852. The contrast between the dull color of the 
teak-wood and the lustre of the gold produces a charming effect. The basement story, 
instead of being completely gilded, has panels of scarlet lacquer, with borders carved 
and gilded. The pilasters are united to each other by golden filigree work of ex- 
quisite delicacy and finish. The corbels which support the copings of the terraces are 
different from those of Toolut-boungyo, consisting of human figures with animals’ heads 


in various attitudes of dancing, and covered with gilding and mosaics. 


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230 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


The balustrades of the balcony are wonderful. They are not, as ordinarily, pilas- 
ters of wood or carved panels, but wide bands of sculpture, artistically enlaced with 
one another ; at their points of contact, curious fantastic figures stand forth, which, 
if not perfectly well executed, have at least much spirit and originality. Along and 
under the balcony is a coping in exquisite taste, consisting of carved bands, which 
repeat the designs of the balcony, and are entwined around shields. 

Interlaced serpents, enamelled in colored glass, with bouquets of flowers in their 
mouths, similarly designed, form the stair railings ; and the walls of the upper stories 
are adorned with crystal mosaics, while the copings and summits of the roofs are of 
exquisitely carved wood. These kyoungs fill the mind with wonder. We ask ourselves 
‘n vain how was it possible for a people having so few resources in respect to tools 
and implements to produce monuments of skill and taste so precious as these. 

In odd contrast to these delicate structures is the Temple of Mengoun, eight miles 
from Amerapoora, an edifice known by the characteristic name of King Mentaragyi’s 
Folly. This grandfather of the present king employed three quarters of his forty years’ 
reign, the weary and unrequited toil of thousands of his subjects, and incalculable 
sums of money, in heaping up masses of brick and mortar to a height of five hun- 
dred feet. It is said a prediction had united the close of his reign with the ter- 
mination of his architectural labors. But he left the latter unfinished, and twenty 
years after, the terrible earthquake of 1839 reduced his temple to the mountain of 
debris which the photographer’s art permits us faithfully to reproduce on the opposite 
page. 

The geological formation of the region watered by the Irrawaddy is very simple. 
From the delta of the river as far as to the neighborhood of Amerapoora the rocks 
are of tertiary formation. Sometimes the current forces its way through gorges in 
these rocks, as below Prome ; sometimes it traverses extensive plains resembling beds 
of ancient lakes. The general stratification is parallel with the river, although at 
certain points the strata present obstacles to the current which has been obliged to 
make its way through deep beds of bluish clay, and even of solid sandstone. 

This being the general character of the river basin, it is important to observe 
that the strata are often dislocated, contorted, and broken. Resting upon these dis- 
located formations is a series of strata of sandstone and conglomerate, less solid than 
the preceding, but also less interrupted. Often sandy, and at times calcareous, these 
strata are full of infiltrated iron, and also contain innumerable fossils of mastodons, 
elephants, the rhinoceros, tapirs, stags, and turtles. 

Near the capital we find chains of metamorphic and crystalline rock, running north 
and south, and forming a series of low hills. It is presumable that they are of 
earlier formation than the tertiary rocks which surround them. There are also trap 


dykes, evidently owing their origin to the subterranean forces that yet work beneath 


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THE TEMPLE OF MENGOUN. 


232 VOYAGES AND. TRAVELS. 


the soil of Burmah, shaking it from time to time, and notably in 1839;"Wwhen they 


bent down like ears of ripened corn, the gigantic temples of Pagan and Mengoun. 
The same incandescent laboratory whence were thrown out, in earlier ages, the spark- 
ling rubies of Momeit, and the gold which all the Burman streams bring down in 
their sands, supplies those vast reservoirs of mineral oil which make the chief riches 
of the valley of the Irrawaddy, and those volcanoes of boiling mud which bubble ‘up 
in new cones every day upon the plain .of Membo. 

At the mouth of the second great river of Indo-China is Bangkok, the Siamese 


capital, and the basin of this river, the Menam, is the natural geographical extent of 


Palace. Bangkok. 


the kingdom. All the central part of this basin is an alluvial plain, cut by inter- 
secting streams, and under water for many months every year. 

The environs of Bangkok are, in every direction, as far as eye can see, as flat 
as the Dutch polders. The city itself rests upon an archipelago of muddy islets, 
which the main stream of the Menam divides into two groups. That on the right 
deserves no higher appellation than suburb, for the huts of the common people, gar- 
dens, and marshes prevail in it. Pagodas and the dwellings of the great are rare. 
On the left of the river is the city, properly so called, surrounded with crenellated 


walls, and flanked with towers and bastions, covering a space six miles in circuit. 


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VALLEY OF THE IRRAWADDY. 


234 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


Between the city and the suburb thousands of booths, floating upon rafts, stretch 
away in two rows, following the windings of the river, which is furthermore encum- 
bered by countless boats of every size and shape. ‘The busy life and industry going 
on upon the water is the first thing which catches the traveller’s notice when he enters 
the Siamese capital. Another strange impression is added to this: there is no sound 
in all the town of wheels or horses’ feet. For business or for pleasure, one is 
obliged to take a boat upon the river. Bangkok is an Oriental Venice; everywhere 
is heard the noise of oars and anchors, the sailor’s song, or the cry of Sepoy boat- 


men. ‘The river is the great boulevard, and the various canals serve as streets and 


Royal Audience Hall. Bangkok. 


lanes. The observer has only choice of two attitudes,— to lean from his balcony, 
or to glide silently over the water, lying in the bottom of his little craft, and lin- 
ger with fascinated eye upon the palaces and pagodas that fling aloft, above the 
eternal verdure of tropical vegetation, their gilded spires, or rear their polished 
domes and lofty pyramids, carved in open-work cut out delicate as lace, reflecting 
all the rays of the sun, all the colors of the rainbow, from their crystal and porce- 
lain veneering. This “Arabian Nights’” architecture, the infinite variety of buildings 
and costumes, indicating the diversity of nationalities gathered here, the incessant sound 
of musical instruments and the tumult of scenic representations, produce an effect both 


novel and pleasing, and without counterpart anywhere in the world. 


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236 


VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


The royal palace (see page 232) is enclosed by high walls of great extent. 


Within the walls the whole enclosure is paved with fine marble and granite blocks. 


There are military posts and cannon in position at frequent intervals. 


are seen elegant little buildings decorated with painting and gilding... 


On every side 


In the centre 


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adorned with superb carvings, and surmounted with a tall gilt spire. 


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receives foreign ambassadors. 


nudience in presence of more than 
At the door 


ground at his feet. 


brought hither from China. 


color and gilding, and the throne, which is shaped like an altar, has a seven-storied 


canopy above it. 


Royal Recreations. 


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MONKEYS TEASING A CRO 


238 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


The royal apartments are adjacent ; then come the palace of the queen and the 
houses of the ladies of honor, and an immense garden, said to be magnificent. Besides 
these, there are extensive buildings containing the royal’ treasure,— gold and silver, 
jewels, furniture, and valuable apparel. 

Within the palace-walls there is a court of justice, a theatre, a royal library, im- 
mense arsenals, stables for the royal horses, and store-houses for all kinds of valuables. 
There is also a superb pagoda, the floor covered with silver mats, containing two 
statues of Buddha, one of solid gold four feet high, the other made of a single 
emerald, more than an arm’s length in height, valued by English visitors at two 
hundred thousand piastres. 

The royal pagodas are of incredible magnificence. Some of them have cost as 
much as two hundred silver quintals,—that is to say, a million of dollars, which, 
considering that labor costs nothing to the king of Siam, leaves the value of the 
materials used at a very high figure. There are eleven of these pagodas within the 
city limits, and twenty without. The pagoda Xetuphon contains a statue of the 
sleeping Buddha, a hundred and fifty feet long, entirely covered with gilding ; in 
the pagoda of Borovanivet, more than four hundred and fifty ounces of gold were 
used in gildings only. A royal pagoda is a great monastery where four or five 
hundred priests are lodged with their attendants. It is really a vast garden, where 
amid trees and flowers stand many elegant buildings: a score of Chinese kiosques; 
many great halls ranged along the bank of the river; a large audience-room for 
preaching; two fine temples, —one for the statue of Buddha, the other a praying-place 
for the bonzes ; two or three hundred pretty little dwelling-houses occupied by the 
priests; ponds and parterres; a dozen pyramids, gilded and covered with tiles, some 
of them two or three hundred feet in height; a bell-tower; flag-staffs surmounted by 
gilt swans, and bearing crocodile-shaped flags; statues of lions and giants in Chinese 
granite; and, at the two extremities of the enclosure, canals lined with masonry, boat- 
houses, and a funeral pile whereon to burn the dead. Add to this that the temples 
are a glittering mass of painting and gilding, and the colossal idol is all gold and 
jewels, and one may form an idea of what is understood in Siam by a royal pagoda. 

The finest of these establishments, that of Watt-Chang (see page 235), stands 
upon the right bank of the river, and its spire, two hundred feet high, is the first 
- indication of the city seen by the traveller as he approaches Bangkok from the sea. 

More recently a pavilion has been erected by the King of Siam, entirely in the 
Italian style, with colonnade and peristyle (see page 236), bearing a Sanskrit inscrip- 
tion upon the portico, which may be translated, “ Royal Recreations.” Within, the 
building consists of a suite of rooms resembling those of a European house, filled 


with mirrors and French clocks, drapery and furniture of the latest fashion, curiously 


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VIEW AT THE MOUTH OF THE RIVER LAIGON. 


240 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


intermingled with philosophical and chemical apparatus, globes and maps, the photog- 
rapher’s camera, and stuffed specimens of natural history. 

From Bangkok, a voyage along the coast of the Gulf of Siam brings the tray- 
eller at last to Saigon, the French seaport of Cochin-China, lying in the delta of 
tne Makong, the third great river of the peninsula, and the one by which access is 
obtained to the inland region of Cambodia and the wonderful ruins of Angcor. 

On the way, however, many towns and small rivers attract notice, and one is 
well repaid for delay by a thousand interesting and curious scenes. Nothing is per- 
haps more amusing than to watch the freaks of the monkeys, which abound in this 
region; and such a scene as the one represented on page 257 may any day be wit- 
nessed in places where the crocodiles are numerous. ‘These amphibize frequent the 


low river banks under trees haunted by troops of malicious monkeys, and the latter 


The Cataract of Khon. 


delight to swing downward and tease the crocodile, extending and withdrawing a little 
black hand within an inch of his mouth. The monster snaps his huge jaws in yain, 
and the monkeys greet his failures with derisive chatter; but sometimes they swing 
too low, and the teasing hand is caught as in a trap. With the rapidity of lght- 
ning the little animal is drawn under the water, and with shrieks and moans the 
frolicsome group in the trees disperses, not, however, so dismayed but that they will 
recommence their amusement whenever the occasion offers. 

The French colony of Cochin-China is in possession of the delta of the Makong, 
and great hopes were at one time entertained by the home government that this 
river’ would prove to be a navigable stream all» the way from the Chinese frontier. 
In this hope a commission was dispatched to examine the river, and it was explored 


nearly to the frontiers, at a great sacrifice of brave and valuable life, only to satisfy 


SCENES [IN MANY LANDS. 241 


themselves that it is “an impassable stream,” broken at least three times by furious 
cataracts, and haying a current against which nothing could be navigated. 

In following the course of the river in the little boats of the country, the French 
explorers frequently turned aside into some lateral arm where the current was less 
violent, and sometimes even made their way amid the trees of inundated forests. 
After ascending it about four hundred miles, they came to the Cataract of Khon, a 
scene of the wildest grandeur. For a distance of five miles the Makong is a series 
of foaming rapids, which here and there are interrupted by sheer leaps of forty or 
fifty feet. The river is here very broad, and rocky islands, covered with vegetation, 
divide each fall into eight or ten separate cascades. 

The illustration on page 239 represents the tranquil scene amid which this tumul- 
tuous water at last finds its way to the sea. For the delta of the Makong, let the 
reader imagine a country perfectly flat, cut by the magnificent arms into which the 
great river divides, extremely well wooded with palms, bananas, and all the luxuri- 
ance of tropical growth crossing and interlacing in eyery direction. Beneath this 
roof of verdure are scattered here and there cabins of bamboo and clay, about which 
wander, on terms of entire equality, many living creatures: first, various specimens, 
more or less filthy and unattractive, of Adam’s race; then, gentle, mild-eyed buffaloes, 
enormous swine of a peculiar breed; and lastly, numberless fowls of that variety 
which the exhibition of 1855 has made so popular in the western world. This. under 
the fervid sun of the tropics, is the picture which meets the eye of the traveller, who, 
by way of the Saigon, or any other of the arms composing the delta, seeks entrance 
to the native land of the Cochin-China fowl. 

The French exploration of the Makong resulted, as we have said, in disappoint- 
ment; but incidentally it had one result which amply justified the expense and effort 
of the whole expedition. This was the exploration of the ruined cities of Cambodia. 
Historically less important than the buried cities of Assyria, they are, in an architec- 
tural point of view, far more extraordinary, and reveal a state of civilization which 
may well excite our astonishment. 

As early as the thirteenth century, a Chinese writer describes these cities, espe- 
cially Angcor the Great, or Angcor Thom, as in a state of great prosperity. Two 
centuries and a half later Ribadeneyra visited them, and found them in ruins. Since 
that time, at rare intervals, travellers have caught a glimpse of wonderful buildings 
buried in jungles, and have kept alive an interest among archeologists in respect to 
these far-off and hidden treasures, gratified at last by a thorough and minute exam- 
ination of them. 

Four miles south of Angcor the Great is the temple, to which all accounts refer 
as the most important of all the existing ruins. Of this we present an illustration, 


reproduced from a photograph, for the purpose of showing the exquisite finish and 


242 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


minute detail of the work. The general plan of the temple consists of three rectan- 
gular and concentric inclosures composed of galleries or verandas, and each fifteen 
or twenty feet higher than the one outside it, giving to the whole mass, as seen from 
without, a pyramidal form. The first of these inclosures measures thirty-two hundred 
and forty feet by thirty-three hundred, and outside of it is a moat six hundred and 
ninety feet broad. This moat is crossed by a superb causeway of great.blocks of 
sandstone, and adorned with pillars and fantastic dragons at regular interyals. In the 
first inclosure is a gateway not unlike the gopura of a Dravidian temple, five stories 
nigh, and extended by lateral galleries and towers into a fagade more than six hun- 
dred feet long. 

Passing through this portal, the road continues to the next inclosure, where it 
ends before a second terrace supported by round columns elegantly sculptured. From 
the second to the third terrace a great flight of steps leads up, and the terrace itself 
is crowned by a central tower, which, although the upper part has been destroyed, 
stands yet about a hundred and ninety feet above the level of the road. Besides 
this central tower, eight others rise from various portions of the building, all con- 
ducing to the pyramidal effect, which seems to haye been the leading idea. 

All the three terraces are surrounded by galleries or colonnades, which are open 
to the air with the exception of those of the second story, and nowhere in all the 
immense structure does there seem to haye been made any provision for human abode. 
The whole building appears to have but one object or end in view, namely, to be 
the entrance to the quadruple sanctuary established at the base of the central tower. 
from whichever of the cardinal points the temple is approached, everything leads 
towards one of the four enormous statues over the four sides of this tower. Nothing 
arrests the explorer till he finds himself at the entrance of the sanctuary. 

The central tower is two hundred feet long and two hundred and thirteen wide. 
In it no divinity is found, for the reason that this temple manifestly was dedicated 
to the snake-worship peculiar to some branches of the Turanian family, and its gods 
suffered from the disadvantage of being eaten up one by another, or dying from 
natural causes. But all through the enormous structure are the tokens of its desti- 
nation. “Every angle of every roof,” says Fergusson, “and there are hundreds, is 
adorned with an image of the seven-headed snake ; every cornice is composed of 


snakes’ heads ; every conyolution of the roof—and there are thousands of them— 


terminates in a five or seven-headed reptile. The balustrades are snakes, and the 
ridge of every roof anciently was adorned with a gilt dragon.” There is, therefore. 
no divinity in the temple, but at present it is occupied by Siamese bonzes, who main- 
tain the worship of Buddha, and take what care they can of the vast edifice. They 
are too few in number to do much, but they sweep out the most frequented cen- 


tral galleries every day, and now and then pull up the grass which grows between 


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244. VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


the stones. The rest is completely abandoned to the inroads of the luxuriant yege- 
tation of the tropics and to bats and night-birds, which make their home by myriads 
under the roofs of the colonnades. 

A. few words of description must be given to these galleries, which are the most 
remarkable feature of Angcor Wat. Their mechanical arrangement is as perfect as 
their artistic design. On the inner side they are formed by a solid wall of the most 
exquisite masonry, supporting the interior terrace of the temple. This wall is built of 
large stones put together without cement, and so exquisitely fitted that it is difficult to 
detect the joints between the stones. ‘T’en feet and a half in front of this wall stands 
a range of square piers, resembling the Roman Doric order, with capitals similar to the 
classic examples, but more ornamented. ‘These pillars have no bases, but at the foot 
of each is carved on the four sides, a figure of a devotee or worshipper, surmounted 
by a canopy of incised ornament, which is also carried along the edge of the shafts. 
The pillars support an architrave and a deep frieze, which is ornamented with bas- 
reliefs of the most elaborate design, and above this a cornice of a very classical outline. 
This cornice is composed of infinite repetitions of the seven-headed snake. The roof 
of these galleries is a pointed arch made by stones projecting one beyond the other, 
as the old Pelasgi used to build, and as do the Indians of the present day. This was 
probably intended to be hidden, as it is quite plain, and in one of the galleries re- 
mains of a beautifully carved ceiling of teak-wood have been discovered. Upon the 
inner walls are an almost infinite variety of bas-reliefs, representing, for the most part, 
battle-scenes. They are distributed in eight compartments, having an aggregate length 
of about two thousand feet, and a height of six and a half feet, the number of figures 
being estimated by one traveller as twenty thousand, and by another as a hundred 
thousand. These figures, by their magnitude, their minute finish, and their elegant 
proportion, compare favorably with classic sculpture, and it is interesting to note that 
the principles on which this sculpture is employed differ from the Indian and from 
the Egyptian examples, where the figures were in high relief, forming part of the 
architecture, but are allied to the Greek method, in which sculpture was regarded 
as purely decorative, and to be used entirely within the architectural lines. 

In examining this great temple minutely, the traveller is impressed with the differ- 
ences existing between its different parts. The two lower stories or terraces seem 
designed to throw into strong relief the importance and richness of the third. As we 
approach the central sanctuary the decoration becomes more splendid ; the chisel cuts 
deeper into the stone, the colonnades are doubled, marvels of sculpture burst forth on 
every side. What admirable arabesques are designed upon the pilasters which make 
the setting of the doors for the sanctuary! On the two sides the general design 
appears symmetrical, but a nearer view reveals the greatest differences, the most charm- 


ing variety in the details ; curiosity and interest are redoubled. ach one of these 


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ANGCOR THOM. 


THE BAION. 


246 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


graceful interlacings, these capricious designs, appears the work of an individual artist, 
who, composing his own design, imitated nothing, borrowed nothing, from his neigh- 
bor; each one of these pages of stone is the feint of a delicate and original inspiration, 
not the skilful reproduction of a common model. Sometimes the commenced page - 
not completed; the stone is left rough, awaiting the chisel. “The artist died, perhaps, 
in the midst of his work, and no one was found to take his place. It seems as if 
this were a fate incident to all great structures. Angcor Wat has fallen into ruins, 
without ever having been finished ! | si 

Even more cruelly threatened by the forces of nature is the old city Angcor 
Thom, or “the Great.” Making his way northward through the forest, along an amaz: 


ing highway, peopled with huge stone figures, — elephants the size of life, lions, drag- 


ons, — most of them overthrown and broken, the traveller reaches the city’s southern — 


gate. The forest, interrupted by the wide belt of moat which forms a kind of clearing 


all around the city, here becomes deeper and more gloomy. A narrow path winds 


between the great trees; here and there are massive stones all overgrown with moss. — 


After a walk of three quarters of a mile, the ‘explorer comes to a vast inclosure, 


within which are visible, in the distance, the towers and spires of some great structure. 


It is the Baion, or Temple of the Forty-two ‘Towers, the most beautiful and exten-— 


sive of the ruins of Angcor. The view of it on the preceding page represents the 
building as it doubtless appeared in its original splendor, surrounded by a broad moat 
and inclosing wall. This moat has been entirely filled up, and within the wall, the 
forest debris of centuries almost bars access to the main structure. But the forty- 
two towers are yet standing, with all their rich sculpture, and it is possible to make 
a thorough examination of the building. Its general plan is much like that of Angecor 


Wat, but it is believed to belong to a somewhat earlier date. 


SS 


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SCENES 1N MANY LANDS. 247 


fs 


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Pete St Re AT. TA. 


F Captain Arthur Phillips — who landed his ship-load of English 
convicts, eight hundred and fifty in number, upon the south-eastern 
coast of the great island of New Holland, a little less than a cen- 


tury ago — could have divined the future of the colony then and there 


founded, it is probable he would have regarded those “rude forefathers 


2, Of the hamlet” with considerable respect, convicts though they were. 
Agriculture, and sheep and cattle raising, were the early pursuits 
of the Australian colonists, and a slow and steady gain in wealth and char- 
acter followed their patient industry. In 1846, the population of the colonies 
numbered one hundred and eighty-nine thousand five hundred. In 1851, gold 
was discovered in New South Wales, and within a twelvemonth more than 
seventeen millions of dollars were exported, mostly to England, although the 
people of other countries were not slow in seeking a share of the spoils. 
The population at once increased enormously. Melbourne, Sydney, and 
Adelaide, originally little seaports for the wool-trade, grew to be large cities, 
Sydney having, in three years from the date of the discovery of gold, at- 


tained a population of over a hundred thousand inhabitants. The great cities 


of the English-speaking race resemble one another all the world over, and there is 


248 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


little difference to be remarked between the three Australian capitals and our own 
New York or San Francisco. 

Outside the cities, however, the Australian flora and fauna exhibit all the pecu- 
liavities of their earliest days. The vegetation seems to be that of an earlier geo- 
logical period than our own. ‘The trees are of great size, and nearly all of them 
peculiar to the “Australian continent. The Hucalypti are called gum-trees by the 
colonists, and often attain a height of a hundred and fifty feet, with a girth at the 
base of from twenty-five to forty feet. Most of these trees shed their bark annu- 


ally, and hence are called “stringy-bark.” Nearly all the Hucalypti are gum-trees, 


os 


y 
iy 


The Eucalyptus serving as a Bridge. 


though but one kind yields pure gum, the exudations of the others being merely 
resins. Another yields a substance called manna, of two kinds, one pure white, the 
other yellow, and both extremely sweet with a flavor of almonds. 

The most remarkable and beautiful of the Australian trees is, however, the fern- 
tree, a straight stem, twenty feet high, spreading out a crest of leaves four or five 
feet in length. The grass-trees have shrubby stems, and tufts of long wiry foliage, 
from the midst of which rise long spikes of flowers, which are used as fodder for 


cattle. 


Of the Hucalypti, one called the blue gum gives a heayy, tough timber, of which 


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AUSTRALIAN VEGETATION. 


Ly 


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250 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


wagons are constructed ; the white gum makes flooring-boards, and the bark of the 
stringy-bark is used for making huts. Rosewood and sandal-wood are abundant. 
The lily, tulip, and honeysuckle grow large as trees, and immense numbers of prickly 
J?) y i, ras) co) ? 
plants cover miles of ground in the interior. What the variety of the Australian 
flora is may be imagined from the fact that it contains over five thousand species 
y 8 


of plants peculiar to the island-continent. 


Australian Sea-coast. 


A scarcity of fresh water, whether in the form of rivers or lakes, is one of the 
chief characteristics of Australia. On the southern coast, for a distance of fifteen 
hundred miles, there is not a single stream falling into the sea. Many of the rivers 
which exist are absorbed before they reach an outlet, or, in the long droughts, dry 
into a series of stagnant pools. 


The Murray is the largest of the Australian rivers, draining, with its affluents, 


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THE RIVER MURRAY IN A FRESHET. 


252 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS, 


/ 
the west slope of the Australian Alps, and flowing into the sea near the city of 
Adelaide, after a course of more than a thousand miles. It is a navigable stream 
in a great part cf its length, but subject to violent freshets,- and at its mouth too 
shallow to be entered by large ships. 

Concerning the aborigines of Australia, much has been said and written by Hng- 
lish residents. They are cruel, it is true, and possess the usual faults of savages, but 
they are extremely quick-witted, and notice carefully whatever they see that is new 
to them. Their powers of imitation are extraordinary; they can represent objects in 
their exact proportions, and in examining pictures that are shown them, no detail 
escapes their notice. Their skill in using the lance and boomerang is well known. 

In the English schools which have been established for them, the native children 
of both sexes learn readily to read and write ; they commit to memory verses of 
poetry and songs, and are especially successful in the use of globes and maps. A 
lad in the Normal School in Sydney for two years took the prize in geography, but 
it was impossible for him to attain the most elementary knowledge of arithmetic. The 
native girls learn readily how to sew and to fit garments, and boys are easily trained 
in farm work and the care of cattle. 

It is, however, to be apprehended that the Australian race will disappear before 
the increasing power of the white residents, although humanity would dictate that 
those who seize upon their land should at least do all that is possible to commu- 


nicate to them the blessings of civilization and the Christian religion. 


ar (WY 5 nS 
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=: SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 253 


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SINCE the days of the great Venetian traveller, 


Marco Polo, probably no epoch in the history of China 


has been so important as the present. Now, at least, 


for the first time, has the Flowery Kingdom been 
opened to the influence of Western civilization. Even 
the sacred Red City, the trebly fortified centre of the 
imperial capital, is no longer a region of mystery, 
and the photographer’s camera has been permitted to 
do its work in the streets of Peking. 

Shanghai, which first opened a door to foreigners, claims our first notice in any 


mention of the vast empire of which it is so important a seaport. Founded as a 


254 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


walled city in 1544, it has always held its own as the great Chinese emporium of — 
foreign trade. In 1831, Dr. Gutzlaff, visiting the place for the first time in a junk, 
observes that from this port “more than a thousand small vessels go up to the 
north several times annually, exporting silk and other Kiangnan manufactures,” and 
besides, that an extensive traffic was carried on with the Indian archipelago. Since 
that time the ships of every commercial people in the world have visited Shanghai; 
and now the approach by river looks almost like that of a prosperous Huropean 
seaport. Ocean steamers, in long line, lie anchored in the channel, and steam-launches 


dart in and out among the crowd of native craft that are seen around, with their 


English Legation. 


brown sails and curious, uncouth shapes. As far as the eye can reach, the broad 
river is crowded, with vessels, and at the wharves the loading and discharging of 
cargoes goes on incessantly. 

In some places there are only native craft, as represented in the illustration on 
the opposite page. These vessels range from fifty to two hundred feet in length ; 
the largest of them have three masts and a short bowsprit. They are elevated bow 
and stern, and have sails of matting, run through with strong bamboo rods, and 
hoisted by a large rope. The mainsail of a large junk will weigh several tons. 


Among the vessels may be seen, here and there, great dismasted junks used as 


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SHANGHAT. 


WATER VIEW. 


256 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


restaurants, and thronged all day by a merry crowd. Upon the wharves much small 
traffic is carried on; idlers loiter, children play at ball or at Chinese shuttlecock, 
striking the bird with the foot instead of with a battledore; and gamblers with cards 
or dice stake the very clothes they wear, their houses, their wives and children, the 
fingers on their hands. 

Shanghai, however, is half a foreign town, and it is at Peking that one finds the 
true Chinese characteristics. This great capital, whose population in 1851 was offi- 
cially stated at two millions of inhabitants, consists really of two cities: the Mongol, 


Mantchu, or Tartar, which is the official and military city at the north; the Chinese, 


Monastery Chapel. 


or trading city, at the south. Each is surrounded by its own walls and moats, and 
they are connected only by three gates elaborately fortified. Between the two cities 
lies a broad paved avenue, and following this to the east, the traveller comes out at 
the angle where the Mongol city is overlapped by the Chinese, and ascending a 
gentle slope, finds himself upon the top of the ramparts. a 

What a strange and magnificent picture it is to the eyes of a European, wonted 
to high, square houses, regular public buildings, and the gray monotony of color pre- 
vailing in all our great cities! Pagodas, temples, kiosques, towers, porticos, curve in 


spirals, bend over like heavy-headed flowers, round themselves into balls, spring up 


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FRENCH LEGATION. 


258 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


in sharp notched peaks, amid the denuded trunks and wide-spreading branches of 
centenarian trees, and flag-staffs of princely residences lifting aloft in air their long, 
bright-colored pennants. 

In front, a little at the right, appear the gilded roofs of the Imperial Palace, with 
its lofty dome of white marble; further on, the five pagodas of the artificial hillock 
in the Imperial Gardens rise one behind the other ; still further away, to the north, 
runs the sombre line of walls, loaded with towers, pavilions, and batteries, rising to 


the height of a hundred and fifty feet above the ground. 


Turning to the left, the view changes entirely; here is the Chinese city, an 
inextricable confusion of narrow lanes and low hovels, with roofs of mud or reddish 
tiles. Only the wide avenue of the centre is visible, cutting the city in halves, 
and the compact and busy crowd can be discerned which is gathered all day long 
in this great artery. | 

Far away the eye rests on the dark mass of a grove of trees, from which arise 
the blue domes of two immense circular buildings: they are the temples of Heaven 
and of Agriculture, with their surrounding parks. Finally, on the west, beyond the, 
wretched suburbs which surround Peking, may be seen a great plain covered with 


luxuriant crops, where there is not a grove, not even a single tree of size. In the 


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PAM 


TEMPLE OF CONFUCIUS 


260 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


north of China, in singular contrast to our European landscape, all the trees are in 
the cities, and the country is but one great grain-field, taxed in every square foot to 
support the enormous population of the Flowery Kingdom. ; 

The interior of the Mongol city is extremely regular. Its outline is a rectangle, 


and from its nine gates extend in straight line across the city, boulevards paved with 


—— 
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FINISSNTUD 


Porcelain Tovwver. 


stone, ninety feet broad, and cut at right angles by numberless streets one-third of 
this width, and in turn connected with each other by an infinity of narrow lanes. 
Here are many imperial establishments, temples, and mandarins’ houses. In the 
southern part of the city are the English and French legations (see pages 254 
and 257), originally palaces of great dignitaries, which had fallen in some way to 
the crown; in the west are Buddhist monasteries, a chapel of one of which is rep- 


resented on page 256; in the extreme north is the great temple of Confucius (see 


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IMPERIAL GARDEN, CHINA. 


262 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


s 


page 259), a truly magnificent marble structure, above the high altar of which are 
inscribed these words, “'The Chief and Guide of the ten thousand worlds ;” and, lastly, 
near the centre, there is a mosque (see page 258), erected in the eighteenth century 
by one of the emperors who had made conquest of a Mussulman prince, and desired 
to afford him opportunity for observing the rites of his own religion. 

In the centre of this Mongol half of Peking is a vast walled inclosure, known — 
as the Yellow City. Within its walls are pagodas of peculiar sacredness, and pal- 
aces of high dignitaries of the empire. Here also are the Imperial Gardens (page 
261), with their great artificial lakes and porcelain tower (page 260), and the hil- 
lock, two hundred and fifty feet high, believed to be in substance a mass of coal, 
accumulated by some provident emperor against an expected siege ; lastly, and most 
important of all, there is a third inclosure, with high walls and a broad moat, and 
four gates,—the Red City, the sacred abode of Imperial Majesty. The Chinese call 
it “The Forbidden City.” Its gates are “The Great Purity,” “The Celestial Tran- 
quillity,” and the like. It contains the palaces of Medium, Sovereign, and Protect- 
ing Concord. It has a pavilion of Impurpled Splendor, wherein the Orchestra of 
Universal Peace plays before the Son of Heaven as he sips his tea. 

Having attained celestial heights of nomenclature like these, it is perhaps well 
to go no further, lest we find they represent but a semi-barbaric splendor a good 
deal fallen into decay, and that the Imperial Palace of China contains but little more 


peace, tranquillity, and concord than does that of Constantinople. 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 263 


' is Aap mm 
i gol IIL SULLA 
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5 nantly repudiate the idea of -a common origin with the dwellers 
i in the Flowery Kingdom. Their civilization, in some points 
Mt identical with the Chinese, in many other respects differs widely 
Vik from it. Their characters used in writing are the same; the 


eS 


= 


worship of Buddha and of Confucius exists equally in both 


countries; in Japan and in China the same style of pagoda rears 


its head, wherein officiate the shaven gray-robed bonzes ; their 
junks are alike; rice and fish, tea and rice-brandy, are the staples of 
consumption in Yeddo as much as in Canton; Japanese coolies make 
the streets of Nangasaki resound with the same piercing, rhythmic cries 
- as do the coolies of Shanghai; the literature of the archipelago has no 
national stamp, being borrowed altogether from China ; finally, the head- 
dress of the Japanese reminds one of that of the Chinese under the early 
dynasties, anterior to the wearing of the queue. 

But here the resemblance ends. The Japanese race, haughty and 

NM noble, military and feudal, differs essentially from the Chinese race, hum- 
ble and sly, scorning the art of war, and having a gift for trade and commerce. 
The Japanese knows the meaning of our word “honor”; to deprive him of his 


sword is an insult only to be wiped out with blood. The Chinese laughs if you 


4 


.' 


264 | VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


tell him he is a coward, or if you prove to him that he has lied: these are mat- 
ters of indifference to him. ‘The Chinese race are filthy in their habits; the Japa- 
nese are of the daintiest neatness. The Japanese has a cheerful disposition, he is 
intelligent, and eager to learn; the Chinese despises all that lies outside of his own 
country. All this denotes in the dwellers in the island empire a race superior to 
that which peoples China; and we are led to believe that the Japanese are an off- 
shoot of the great Mongol family, owing their presence here to some early immigra- 
tion by way of the Corea. 

Whatever may be their origin, no Asiatic race is more interesting, and the mys- 
tery in which they have been shrouded until within the last twenty years adds per- 
haps to the eagerness with which the great civilized nations of the west now press 
through the doors which Commodore Perry’s Expedition, and the famous “treaty of 
friendship and trade,” first opened in 1854. 

In many respects it is still difficult fully to understand the Japanese character 
and habits. The home life of the higher classes is yet carefully secluded from for- 
eign inspection, but enough is known to show us an amiable, versatile, light-hearted 
race, neither truly Asiatic, nor yet completely European; but, like the ancient Greeks, 
forming a link between the two. Of their curious dual government, and the duplicate 
system to which it has given rise,—a system carried out into almost every detail 
of existence,— we haye not space here to speak. ‘To understand their language is 
a matter of extreme difficulty, and no thorough knowledge of a people can exist 
without an adequate comprehension of its mental ability as displayed in its own liter- 
ature. It is, however, a curious fact that the J apanese, so reticent in respect to 
themselves, have from age to age placed upon record their daily lives in the shape 
of thousands of cleyer sketches, of more or less finish, but all interesting and in- 
structive from their strongly marked originality, and many of them from the quaint 
and cynical humor which characterizes their conception. A most fascinating book 
would be a collection of such sketches, which might be entitled, “The Japanese 
painted by themselves.” : 

We present two of these sketches on pages 265 and 267. ‘The first represents 
a scene from one of the numerous theatres in Yeddo, looking upon the stage across 
a private box. Theatrical representations are announced every night just before sun- 
set by an harangue from a staging outside, in which the merits of the piece are set 
forth, and the public are notified of the names of the performers. As it grows dark 
the lanterns are lighted and the invitation is given, “Enter, gentlemen! enter, ladies! 
The performance is about to begin.” The illumination, however, attracts many lin- 
gerers outside. Two rows of great paper lanterns cross the front of the building. 
Between them are globes of transparent paper, each containing a wax candle, and 


around the doors are enormous oblong lanterns throwing light upon placards which ~ 


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CAUCHA RO 


BUTTERFLY BALLET IN A THEATRE IN YEDDO. 


set forth the characters and scenes of the play. Some of these placards are the entire 


266 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


height of the building, and there are banners higher than the placards. Hach thea- 
tre has its own armorial bearings reproduced on the lanterns and fiags, and, im 
gigantic proportions, covering three sides of the building. 7 

Within, the best places are in the second gallery, where spacious boxes are 
arranged in a row, furnished only with the usual Japanese matting by way of seats ; 
a servant at once brings in tea, cakes, and sweetmeats, also pipes, tobacco, and a 
little brasier. As long as Japanese actors welcome their audience in this way, they 
can safely abandon to us the practice of paid applause, nor dread the importation 
of our ways of expressing disapproval. 

The performances are in great variety, and last usually till one o’clock in the 
morning. ‘The exhibitions of Japanese jugglers in the United States, some years ago, 
will give an idea of their skill in certain directions, and it is not too much to say 
that, taking into consideration the national character and ideas, the Japanese have no 
superior in their theatrical representations of whatever kind. 

The illustration on the opposite page brings us to a mention of the Daimios, the 
great feudal aristocracy of Japan. Hach of these nobles is practically imdependent 
of the Tycoon when in his own province, where he has the power of life and death 
over all his subjects and dependants. ‘To keep some order among this turbulent 
class, an early Tycoon required them to spend half of every year in his capital of 
Yeddo, and on their return retained their wives and children as hostages. Thus is 
explained the enormous extent of the official quarters of the city within a double 
enclosure of glacis, wall, and moat, and whole streets with moated houses display- 
ing a frontage of more than a thousand feet. These buildings differ among them- 
selves only in size, but are all of the same style of architecture and the same sim- 
plicity. Many of the streets are a hundred feet wide, and the fronts of the houses 
—that is, the two-storied range of buildings enclosing the court-yard — sometimes 
extend nearly a quarter of a mile. These buildings are always separated from the 
street by a small, narrow, and muddy moat, little more than a gutter. ‘They are in 
form an oblong square, with low, wide, grated windows and doors at regular inter- 
vals. ‘They are occupied by servants and armed retainers. Within are the seigno- 
rial residences, and beautiful gardens, while towering shade-trees rise above the roofs 
and give an air of regal grandeur to the scene. No business is ever seen in this 
quarter. Armed retainers pace the streets, often with bows and arrows, and with the 
armorial bearings of their masters embroidered in the back and sleeves of their tunics. 
At times some Daimio is seen abroad, accompanied by his train, as in the illustra- 
tion. He rides in a norimon, or Japanese palanquin, —a suspended cage, much like a 
large baby-house, says Sir Rutherford Alcock, with roof, and side-doors, and cushions, 


and shelves, and windows. It is suspended from the shoulders of four men, two 


STREET SCENE IN THE QUARTER OF THE DAIMIOS. 


“i 
a y = = ii : 


268 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


before and two behind, the bottom of the norimon being about a foot from the 
ground. The bearers step out at an even steady pace of about three miles an hour. 
This is the mode of locomotion de rigueur for the great Daimio; he is sometimes 
followed by two or three led horses, but it must be a very poor noble indeed who 


demeans himself so far as to be seen on horseback. An armed guard surrounds 


him, and before him a porter carries a couple of trunks containing a change of 


clothing, in case he may wish to make some alteration in his toilette during the few 
hours he will be absent from home. | 
At the opposite end of the city lie the trading quarters. Here shops of every 


description, notably those for the sale of porcelain and bronze, as on page 269, abound. 


Of Japanese art pages might be written merely in opening the subject. As has 


been well observed by M. du Chesne de Bellecour, in an article in the Revue des 


Deux Mondes, Japanese taste favors the rare and elegant, rather than the sumptu- — 


ous. Nowhere, unless perhaps on the diadems of the Mikado and the Kisaki, is 
there lavish display of gold and precious stones. The grandees of the empire take 
pride in the antiquity of their possessions. Nothing is so precious in their eyes as 
an assorted service of old cracked porcelain, or vases of antique bronze, heavy, mas- 
sive, black, and polished as marble, or furniture and utensils of that old gold-powdered 
lacquer known as salvocat. The great bronze vases of modern Japanese work are 
perhaps the most perfect of all their artistic achievements. They are often five feet 
high; some are of a beautiful yellow almost as brilliant as gold ; upon these is a great 
display of ornaments in relief, mostly mythological subjects: others, more seyere in 


style, exhibit upon a plain, smooth, black surface light designs of flowers, birds, and 


arabesques, in silver thread beaten into the bronze with a hammer. The only rivals. 


in elegance to these beautiful black bronze vases with their niello-work of silver, are 
their porcelain vases, light-gray or sea-green in color, ornamented with fine painting 
of which the delicate touch and harmonious tints have an indescribable charm. 

A few words must be said of the Japanese religion, which is represented in its 
two great phases,—the worship of ancestors, by the illustration of the Temple of 
Hatchiman, on page 270; and the Buddhist worship, by the Temple at Kawasaki, 
represented in the head-piece to Japan, and in part, on a larger scale, on page 271. 
The former is evidently the earlier faith of the country, and seems to have been 
originally a commemoration of certain great men and early heroes, to whom the 
country was much indebted, but of scarcely any religious import. Later it grew to 
be a form of worship, and has curiously blended with the Buddhism borrowed from 
China and India. Buddhism is a flexible, conciliating, insinuating system, and knew 
how to accommodate itself to the Japanese mind. On their first entrance into Japan, 
the bonzes succeeded in obtaining the guardianship of the shrines and little chapels 


of the earlier faith, and built around them sanctuaries of their own. They readily 


a 


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Ith 


JAPANESE BAZAAR. 


270 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


added to their own ceremonies symbols borrowed from the national religion; finally, 
the better to mingle the two forms of worship, they introduced into their temples 
Japanese idols, invested with titles and attributes of Hindoo divinities, and Hindoo 


divinities transformed into Japanese. There was nothing inadmissible in these changes, 


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Temple of Hatchiman. 


naturally explicable by the doctrine of transmigration, and, thanks to this combina- 
tion, to which has been given the name of Rioboo Sintoo, Buddhism is now the 


dominant religion of Japan. 


Our last illustration (page 273) represents the entrance to the residence of the 


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272 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS: 


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English legation in Japan. Of what is to be seen within this portal Sir Rutherford 


Alcock’s own description will be most appropriate. This gentleman arrived in Yeddo 


in 1859, as her Majesty’s envoy-extraordinary, and at once requested a residence to 


be assigned him. A choice was offered of two or three buildings which had served as” 


temples, and of these the selection was made of the Tozengee, one of the largest and 
best-endowed in Yeddo. “During our walk,” says the envoy, “I had been assured 
there was no finer site or grounds in the city, and that it had been specially des- 
tined for the British representative. On turning off the Tocado (as the great. high- 


road through the island is called, and which skirts the bay here), we passed through a 


gate giving entrance to a long avenue of cryptomeras and pines; then through a sec-— 


ond more imposing gateway of two stories across an open square with lotus ponds and 
trees on each side; and finally, by an entrance to the right, through another court-yard, 
and gained a fine suite of apartments looking on to as beautiful a specimen of Japa- 
nese garden and grounds as can well be conceived. A lawn was immediately in front; 
beyond, a little lake, across which was a rustic bridge; and beyond this again, palm- 
trees and azalias, large bushes trimly cropped into the semblance of round hillocks; 
while the background was filled up with a noble screen of timber composed of the 


finest of all Japanese trees, — the evergreen, oak, and the maple. Palms and bam- 


boos were interspersed, and a drooping plum-tree was trained over one end of the 


rustic bridge giving passage across the lake. ‘To the right, a steep bank shut in 
the view, covered equally with a great variety of flowering shrubs and the ground- 
bamboo, and crowned with more of the same timber. Through this a path led up- 
ward by a zigzag flight of steps to a fine avenue of trees, the end of which wid- 
ened into a platform, whence a wide view of the bay and part of the city below 
could be obtained with a perfectly scenic effect. The distant view was set in a 
framework of foliage, formed by the branches and trunks of pine-trees, towering from 
fifty to a hundred feet high into the blue sky above. From the end of the ave- 
nue, through which a mid-day sun could only pour a chequered arabesque of light 
and shade, the bay stretched far away a thousand feet below, basking in the full 
glare of sunshine, and making the deep, cool shade of the terrace, with its thick 
screen of green leaves, all the more enjoyable by contrast.” 

Not a corner, however, of this delightful habitation but was destined later to 
have its sinister memories. The foot of the flagstaff was reddened with the Japa- 
nese linguist’s blood, on the 29th of January, 1860 ; the main entrance, the court, the 
temple, the second story of the legation, became, in the night attack of July, 1861, 
the scene of a frightful struggle, which left five dead upon the floor and eighteen 
wounded ; finally, upon the veranda on the garden side, fell, a year later, two Hng- 
lish marines, after having fatally wounded one of their assassins. 


In consequence of these events, all the foreign representatives in Japan demanded 


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ENGLISH LEGATION. 


274 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


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and obtained from the Tycoon the concession of a quarter in which they could unite — 


all the legations, put themselves in a state of defence, and insure a communication 
with the ships of war of their respective countries. A public garden of great size, 
called Goten Yama, was assigned for this purpose. Acres of peach-trees in flower 
were cut down, and great clumps of cedars fell under the axe. The pleasure resort 
of the populace was destroyed, and all was prepared for the new buildings. But no 
sooner had the British legation been completed, with its imposing facade, its elegant 
galleries, and picturesque roofs, than the hand of an _ incendiary laid it in ashes. 
Warned by this event, the other legations were abandoned, and the representatives 
of European powers in Japan withdrew their residence to Yokohama. 

In common prose, the Japanese call their country Nipon; in poetry, it is “The 
Empire of the Rising Sun.” The archipelago consists of four large islands, and a 
crowd of lesser ones. The whole region is the theatre of frequent and violent earth- 
quakes ; hence, all the houses are wooden, and but one story in height. At Yeddo, 
however, there are city walls and gates of Cyclopean construction, consisting of enor- 
mous blocks of rough stone, fitted into one another. Many volcanoes are still in ebul- 
lition, but Fusi-yama, the highest mountain in Japan, more than eleven thousand feet 


in height, is now extinct. 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 275 


mM 


wise, will postpone for a few weeks his arrival at the Golden Gate, 
and very gladly allow himself time to linger in that beautiful half- 
way house between Japan and California, officially known to all 
the world as the Hawaiian Islands, — popularly still bearing, and 
‘kely ever to bear, the name of Lord Sandwich. 

Twenty miles away, when the air is clear, Oahu is discern- 
ible, a group of gray, barren peaks rising out of the lonely sea. Ap- 
proaching nearer, the island reveals its tropical beauty ; the lofty peaks, 
gray and red, are cleft by deep chasms and ravines, filled with cool 
shadow and luxuriant vegetation; the coast is fringed by the feathery 
cocoanut-tree, and marked by a waving line of surf; and Honolulu shows 
its picturesque dwellings, nestling on the soft green turf, under their palms 
and bananas, their umbrella-trees and bread-fruits, their oranges, mangoes, 
hibiscus, and passion-flowers. Passing through a narrow winding passage 
of deep-blue water, the surf running white over the coral reefs on both 
sides, we moor in the harbor, amid American and English vessels, and countless 
canoes filled with natives. 

Oahu is divided by a lofty volcanic ridge, stretching from the north-west to the 


276 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. | 4 


south-east extremity of the island, and separating the two sections completely from each 
other, except at a single point, the Pali, or precipice, of Nuuanu (page 275). This 
Pali is at the height of a thousand feet above the sea, and above it tower the hills, 
_ wall-like ridges of gray rock, rising precipitously out of the trees and grass, and broken 
up into pinnacles and needles. From the edge of the precipice we look down upon 
a vast plain, with clusters of palms and white houses; beyond is the coral reef, and 
the wavy line of surf, while away to the horizon stretches the broad blue sea, ruffled 
by a fresh breeze. ew 

The islands are twelve in number, but only eight are inhabited, and of these Oahu 
and Hawaii are the most important. The latter is the largest of the group, being 
eighty-eight miles long and seventy-three broad. ‘The whole formation is volcanic; but 
in Hawaii the igneous structure is most marked, reaching its climax in two great 
volcanoes, nearly fourteen thousand feet in height,—the one extinct, Mouna Kea, 
the other, Mouna Loa, in a state of incessant activity. 

Very few persons have made the ascent of Mouna Loa, but to those who have 
reached its summit is revealed a vision of wonder and grandeur which has no par- 
allel in the world. ‘This magnificent snow-covered dome, whose base is sixty miles 
in diameter, is crowned by a ghastly volcanic table-land, creviced, riven, and ashy, 
twenty-four miles in circumference. Across this the traveller makes his way over 
strange masses of lava, across chasms and around ledges, to the edge of the sum- 
mit crater, a region of inaccessible blackness and horror, six miles in circumference, 
and more than eight hundred feet in depth. At times this crater is inactive for 
weeks, and then breaks out with fire and lava-streams, and clouds of black smoke, 
trailing out thirty miles over the sea. 

At a height of four thousand feet upon the side of the great mountain is the - 
crater of Kilauea, a comparatively easy ascent of thirty miles from Hilo. This crater 
has the effect of a great pit in a rolling plaim, and the traveller approaching finds 
himself unawares upon its very brink, just as he is beginning to doubt if he shall 
ever reach it. Kilauea is nine miles in circumference, and its lowest area covers six 
square miles. The depth of the crater varies from eight hundred to eleven hun- — 
dred feet in different years, according as the molten sea below is at ebb or flood. 
Signs of volcanic activity exist all through it and for some distance around its margin, 
in the form of steam-cracks, jets of sulphurous vapor, blowing cones, and deposits 
of sulphur, and the pit is constantly rent and shaken by earthquakes. But in a lake 
in the southern part of the crater (see page 277), the most marvellous phenomena 
are constantly visible. To reach this lake three miles within the actual crater, the 
traveller must descend the terminal wall, which is very precipitous, and then a second 
slope, thickly covered with flowering plants and ferns of great beauty, and then a 


third of rough blocks and ridges of broken lava, and so arrive at the lowest level 


IVoly Tisi- dO aa LY uo 


278 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


of the crater, presenting from above the appearance of a sea at rest, but found to 
be an expanse of waves and conyolutions of ashy-colored lava, with huge cracks 
filled up with black iridescent rolls that were molten stone but a few weeks earlier. 
Parts are very rough and ridgy, but most of the area presents the appearance of 
monstrous coiled hawsers, the ropy formation of the lava rendering the illusion almost 
perfect. All this is riven by cracks emitting hot sulphurous vapor. Beyond, comes 
a ridge of lava, like the rim of a bowl, four hundred feet high, most difficult of 


ascent ; and then the fiery lake lies revealed. It is perhaps five hundred feet wide 


ee 


Waves of Fire. 


at its narrowest part, and half a mile at its broadest, with craggy sides of lava. 
To describe it seems impossible ; the prominent object is fire in motion, but its 
surface continually skims over with a cool crust of a lustrous grayish-white, like 
frosted silver broken by jagged cracks of bright rose-color. The movement is from 
the sides towards the centre, but the central movement seems distinct, and always 
directs itself towards the south. All around the edge of the lake play fountains of 
fire, leaping, dancing, whirling together, merging into one glowing mass, which upheayes 
itself pyramidally, then disappears with a tremendous plunge, to form anew and again 


disappear. 


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LAVA STREAM. 


280 | VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


At times two huge waves (page 278), rising from opposite sides, move slowly 
towards each other, gaining in height as they advauce. Rearing their crests twenty feet 
above the level of the lake, they meet. The sound and shock is indescribable. They 
form a whirling pyramid of fire sixty feet high, scattering fiery spray in every direc- 
tion, then sink and disappear, and the grayish-white scum forms again over the lake. 

One most momentous effect of volcanic action in the Hawaiian Islands is the 
flow of lava, devastating the beautiful and fertile regions around the mountains. 
Some of these streams have been of extraordinary extent and volume, sweeping away 
farms and herds of cattle, and even villages in their course (page 279). In April, 
1868, the most tremendous outflow of lava known in Hawaiian history took place. 
There had been earthquakes and threatenings from the volcano, and all minds were 
anxious as to the event, when, without a moment’s warning, the ground south of 
Hilo burst open with a crash and roar. A molten river emerged through a fissure 
two miles long, with tremendous force and volume. Four huge fountains of fire 
boiled up, throwing lava and rocks of many tons’ weight to a height of from five 
hundred to a thousand feet. From these great fountains flowed to the sea a rapid 
stream of red lava, rolling, rushing, tumbling, like a swollen river, bearing along 
_large rocks that made the lava foam as it dashed down the precipice and through 
the valley into the sea, surging and roaring throughout its length like a cataract, 
with a power and fury perfectly indescribable. It was nothing less than a river of 
fire, from two hundred to eight hundred feet wide and twenty deep, with a speed 
varying from ten to twenty-five miles an hour. 

Thus were lost four thousand acres of valuable pasture land, and a much larger 


quantity of magnificent forest. 


* 
i y 
a 
TeSAVE SVS od 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 281 


—, AN FRANCISCO owes its origin to Roman Catholic missionaries and 
Spanish soldiers, its site beimg first permanently occupied by a gar- 
rison and a mission in 1776. For nearly sixty years the mission 
remained the centre of a rude little village of adobe huts, haying 
a population varying from a hundred and fifty to four hundred, 
Indians, Mexicans, and Spanish. In 1835, the first pioneer dwelling 
was erected, and in the following year the first frame-house. In 
1847, the town contained seventy-nine buildings, which by March, 1848, had 
increased in number to two hundred, with a population of eight hundred 
and fifty. On New Year’s day, 1849, the town numbered two thousand 
inhabitants, and its streets were full of the early miners, with their nug- 
gets and their bags of “ dust.” 
>) At this day, San Francisco stands, not. merely the chief city of Cal- 
TaN . ifornia, but the ereat commercial metropolis of the Pacific slope ; a city 
SG) with endless quays and docks, visited by the flags of every nation from 
A England to China; a city of banks, hotels, shops, mining companies, agri- 
cultural exhibitions, and private houses, the most sumptuous in the world; a city of 
learned professors, eminent doctors, clever journalists, distinguished lawyers ; a city, 
also, of gamblers, adventuresses, vagabonds, and thieves ; a rendezyous of all nations, 


a Tower of Babel, where all languages are spoken, from English to Malay, Tartar, 


282 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


. 


and Celtic. Upon the whole, a charming city, an incomparable situation, dazzling 
atmospheric effects, a picturesque aspect. 

The natural surface is very uneven, and by its diversity of level gives relief 
to the buildings. The site of the city was a line of sandy beach, salt marsh, and 
mud flats, varied by narrow ravines, small shallow valleys, and sandy knolls, with 
stretches of close. adobe soil; rocky bluffs fortified its extremities, while extensive 
ledges lay back of it. The original founders of San Francisco could have had no 
reason to suspect that they were laying out a grand metropolis, and hence what- 
ever they projected was done with the least possible regard to symmetry or the 


demands of future growth. Not one important street conforms its course to the 


The Grand Hotel at San Francisco. 


cardinal points of the compass, and but one main avenue, Market Street, is wide 
enough. 

In its buildings, San Francisco shows every grade, from the stately elegance of 
the Grand Hotel, to the curious squalor of the Chinese quarter. The hotel stands 
on Market Street, occupying the whole block from New Montgomery to Second 
Street, with a frontage to the north of two hundred and five feet, and to the west 
of three hundred and thirty-five, thus covering more than an acre and a half of 
ground, and its four hundred rooms have all the luxury in furniture and decora- 
tion that the highest civilization can devise. What the Chinese quarter is it is not 
so easy to say. Only the pen of a Dickens could do justice to a theme like this. 


Seen from the street, the shops and stalls are quaint and Asiatic enough, but to 


SN 


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SSS 


SS 


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SS 


WSs 
SS 


CHINESE QUARTER 


IN SAN FRANCISCO. 


284 VOYAGES AND TRAVESS: 


him who, under the guidance of a police officer, penetrates by day or night into the 
rickety, tumble-down, vermin-haunted hives which rise through four or five stories, all 
alive with swarming lazzaroni, what untold horrors are revealed ! 

But let us turn from the great city, with its splendor and its misery, to where, 
two hundred miles away, the wonderful Yosemite Valley woos the traveller to repose 
amid all the grandeur and loveliness of primitive nature. On page 285 is represented 
the valley, seen from one of those points of view at the western entrance which 
command the whole gigantic cleft. At the left rises the square bulk of “ Hl 


Capitan,” an immense granite cliff, projecting angularly into the valley, and having 


The Cathedral. 


two fronts, one facing nearly west, the other south-easterly, meeting in a sub-acute 
angle. These two fronts are over a mile long and three thousand three hundred 
feet high, smooth, bare, and vertical, ending at the top with a sharp edge. The 
State Survey says of this cliff: “El Capitan imposes upon us by its stupendous bulk, 
which seems as if hewed from the mountains on purpose to stand as the type of 
eternal massiveness. It is doubtful if anywhere in the world there is presented so 
squarely cut, so lofty, and so imposing a face of rock.” Behind El Capitan the 
North Dome lifts its rounded granite bulk three thousand five hundred and seventy 


feet above the valley. Seen nearer, it looks as if built of huge, concentric, over- 


Ly 
mn 


Wy UY ea 
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] 


LoHE YOSEMITE. VALLE y: 


286 VOYAGES AND TRAV ET. 


lapping hemispherical domes piled one upon another, and having their overlapping 
edges irregularly broken away. Towards the south and south-east it is so steep that 
no human foot has ever climbed it. On the north and west, however, it falls away in 
a great ridge, or spine, by which one can easily gain the very summit of the dome 


itself. 
On the right, opposite El Capitan, is the famous cascade called the Bridal Veil. 


8 


i 


\\ NN \\ \ \ 
Nevada Fall. 


For six hundred and thirty feet the stream, which is sixty-five feet wide at the edge 
of the cliff, leaps over it in one unbroken fall. Thence it rushes down the steep slope 
of broken rocks in a confusion of intermingled cascades, for nearly three hundred feet 
more. The varying pressure of the wind causes a veil-like wavering, swaying, and flut- 


tering in the sheet of falling water, which has made the name appropriate. Half a mile 


Na 
Pagal i 


GIANT TREES OF CALIFORNIA. 


288 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


further the cliff rounds outward, and swells up into an enormous double rocky bastion, 
the Cathedral Rocks (page 284). From certain points of view, a resemblance is fancied 


to exist between these cliffs and some yast, dilapidated Gothic structure. A little more 


than two miles east of the Cathedral is the huge Sentinel Dome, one of the most 


regularly formed of all the peculiar dome-like peaks about the valley, and beyond the 
Sentinel rises clear and sharp against the sky Yosemite’s loftiest isolated cliff, the Half 
Dome. This is a bare crest of naked granite, four thousand seyen hundred and forty 


feet high, cleft straight down in one huge vertical front on the north-west side, while 


The Garden of the Gods. 


towards the south-east it rounds away in a vast slope, rendering it, like the North 
Dome, easily accessible to the traveller. 

~The Yosemite Valley is seven miles long, and for every mile it has its waterfall. 
At the very extremity of the cafion, at a point where the rocky walls almost close 
together, the main river enters the valley with one leap of seven hundred feet, making 
the Nevada Fall (page 286). In purity and volume of water, and in a thousand 
graceful peculiarities, this fall surpasses all the others in the valley, and with it we 
take our last look at the Yosemite. 


No sketch of California, however brief, can pass by its Big Trees, the Sequoia 


cae 


i= 


- 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 289 


gigantea, a kind of redwood, of which nine groves are already known to exist, 
while the exploration of the state constantly adds to their number. Of these the 
most celebrated are the Calaveras and the Mariposa Groves, the former containing 
the tallest Sequoia now standing, called the Keystone State, which reaches a height 
of three hundred and twenty-five feet. The fashion of naming these trees is amus- 
ingly illustrated in the case of the three shown in the illustration, which have been 
called “The Three Graces.” They are about two hundred and seventy feet high, 
and would overtop Trinity Church in New York. At one time it was believed that 


the Sequoia belonged to some past geological or botanical epoch, but this idea is now 


abandoned, since it has been discovered that there are multitudes of infant giants of 


ite ae es 


— = ——. 
—< eS 
= SS = = 


: Long’s Peak. 


1° 


this race scattered throughout the forests of the Sierra, of all sizes, from the seedling 


upwards. 

From the Forest of the Giants to the Garden of the Gods (page 288) is but 
an easy flight for the imagination, although it be many a long league by the road. 
The Garden of the Gods is in the valley of a small stream called Monument Creek, 
which lies along the base of the mountains north of Colorado City. Ages of atmos- 


pheric work and running water have worn the rocks through which the little river 


has made its way into wonderful and fantastic shapes, — towers and _ bastions, battle- 


. . % s > 2 ? - 
mented summits and half-buried columns. What is called ‘the Garden widens 
suddenly from a natrow gorge into a beautiful valley a mile and a half long and 


half a mile broad. At its southern end the mountains again approach each other as 


290 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


if to form a gateway, in front of which rise huge masses of rock, walls, gigantic 
statues, and strange, grotesque shapes in stone. Within, as if in some palace garden 
of the Old World, are velvet lawns, —tall, stately pines and oaks, the growth of 
centuries, — masses of shrubbery, and a bDrilliant display of flowers, the native growth 
of this favored land. Amid this green luxuriance stand well-rounded columns of 
stone, and wonderful resemblances to figures of men, and birds, and animals. These 
pillars are of every variety. of color, — gray, white, red, black, and blue, and rise to 
a height of two and three hundred feet. A singular freak of nature is a gigantic 
stone eagle, which it is hardly possible not to believe the work of the chisel, perched 
upon a column two hundred and fifty feet high. The impressive character of this 
solitary place is beyond description. The murmur of the water, the sighing of the- 
trees, the towering majesty of the stone. columns and figures, the grandeur of the 
encircling mountains, and over all, the illimitable blue sky, unite in an effect which 
no language can render. | 

Further to the north in the same state, seen from a hundred miles away, Long’s 
Peak, with its attendant mountains, rises against the sky, reaching at its highest 
point an altitude of 14,056 feet. It is needless to add to the illustration (page 289) 
which represents this scene, except to suggest the coloring: in the foreground the 
intense green of the prairie, blending into the black granite of the nearer hills, and 
over and above these, massed higher and yet higher, in billowy confusion, the sharp 
white peaks clad in perpetual snow. Indescribable varieties of shade and color are 
produced in this range by the sun, in his passage across the sky. In the morn- 
ing they are veiled in mist; under the strong light of noon they are luminous and 
distinct ; at sunset they soften and take hues of rose and violet, and at twilight they 
stand out black and clear against the red sky. Late in the afternoon, too, the sun- 
light, striking into the huge valleys, reveals their width, and gives some idea of the 
great spaces between the outer heights, and the remoter, snow-crowned peaks which 
top the ridge. 

Another scene from this wonderland of mountain and river is represented in the 
steel engraving facing this page. An ingenious theory has been advanced to account 
for the singular forms of these cliffs, which, if true, equally explains the strange 
rock-configuration of the Garden of the Gods. The high winds and blowing sands 
and sharp rains of this region, acting upon the soft rock and clay of these hills, 
are believed to have shaped them into the forms we now wonder at. The share 
which the high winds, and the sand they take up and blow with great force in 
right lines, in curves, and in whirls, has had in this great work, both in its fantasies 
and in its destructions, is such as can hardly be realized by those who have not wit- 
nessed these atmospheric phenomena. Sand showers and sand whirlwinds are of almost 


daily occurrence. They load the air with sand, they carry it everywhere, — among 


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. . SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 291 


rocks, into houses, through walls; and there keep it at its work of destruction and 

reconstruction. In a house among these mountains there is a window that one sin- 
gle storm of this sort has changed from common glass into the most perfect of 
ground glass; and the fantastic architecture this agent has created among the rocks 
of the country, from the North Platte to Fort Bridger, can only be understood and 
appreciated by being seen. 

“The tall, isolated rocks,” says Meline, “that surmount a hill, sometimes round, 
but always even and smooth as the work of the finest chisel ; the immense columns 
and fantastic figures upon the walls of rock that line a valley for miles; the soli- 
tary mountains upon the plain, fashioned like fortresses, or rising like Gothic cathe- 
drals; the long lines of rock embankment one above another, formed sometimes into 
squares like a vast fort, and again running along for miles, a hundred feet above 
the valley, looking like the most perfect of railway embankments, with the open 
space occasionally for a watercourse: these, and kindred original fashions of nature, 
with details indescribable and picturesque, are a constant excitement and inspiration 
to the traveller.” ; 

The color of the clays and conglomerates of which these and similar cliffs are 
composed, adds greatly to their picturesque effect. They are often dyed, by the 
presence of iron, copper, and sulphur, into brilliant and startling combinations of 
colors, sometimes beautifully blended, sometimes opposed, with that glaring contra- 
diction to the laws of man of which nature is so fond, and in which she succeeds 
so perfectly. Hyery shade of yellow is represented, from a delicate cream-color to a 
glaring saffron ; bright reds and scarlets, and intense purples, shading off into black, 
are relieved by occasional patches of vivid verdure, or by the more sombre green 
of the few daring pine-trees that cling to the cliff. 

Besides the soft conglomerates which compose these cliffs there are, also, the hard 
basaltic rocks which underlie the clay, breaking through in sharp lines and crests, 
and adding the variety of their abrupt outlines to the softened and rounded forms 


which elsewhere prevail. 


Next neighbor on the north to our own Pacific States, the territory of British 
Columbia has recently attracted so much attention from its gold-fields, that it must 
not be passed by without mention. Its area is about two hundred thousand square 
miles, with a coast -line of four hundred and fifty miles. Its shore abounds with 
inlets, navigable by steamers and sailing-vessels of moderate draft, and affords ad- 
mirable communication with the settlements springing up in the interior. 

From Victoria on Vancouver Island a line of steamers runs across the Gulf of 
Georgia, and conveys passengers and freight as far as the head of navigation on 


the Lower Fraser. Thence, amid a thousand difficulties, the road climbs to the mining 


292 VOVAGES\ ANDVIRAVAES, 


regions beyond. Below is represented one of the passes in the mountains. The 
officer in charge of the government exploring party describes it thus : — 

“The trail at first runs up the backbone of a singular spur, winding further 
up among crumbling fragments of rocks, and finally reaching by a dizzy path the 
summit of a perpendicular wall which crowns the mass. The cliff is composed of 


blocks of columnar basalt in the shape of multangular prisms, averaging in their 


Road in British Columbia. 


aa 


perfect state about two cubic feet in size, usually stained of a dull red color, and 
somewhat vesicular. The blocks are fixed together as perfectly as if by human agency, 
and the layers are horizontal. ‘Thus on the summit, which is perfectly level, patches 
are met with in which, the scant soil having been washed away, the jointing of 


these singular stones, almost resembling mosaic pavement, is clearly visible, and towards 


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COLUMBIA. 


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294 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


the edge of the cliff large portions of the rock have crumbled away, leaving stand- 


ing, in many places, abrupt columnar masses as much as fifty feet in height.” 


The whole country is overgrown with forests, of whose magnitude it is impos- 


% 


sible to form any estimate. (See page 293.) The cedar, hemlock, and pine attain” 


a growth rivalling the Sequoia of the more southern coast. Ascending the Fraser, 
the traveller is filled with wonder and admiration at the woods which line both shores. 
Varieties of pine, firs of prodigious size, and enormous poplar-trees, predominate. 


The vine and the soft maple, the wild apple-tree, the white and black thorn, and 


deciduous bushes in great variety, form the massive undergrowth. The vegetation is’ 


luxuriant to an inconceivable degree, and in early summer presents a peculiarly beau- 


tiful appearance. The eye never tires of ranging over the varied shades of the fresh 


ee PE 
E.Mevse 


Jesuit College. Santa Clara. 


green foliage, mingled with the white flowers of the wild apple, which fill the air 


with delicious fragrance ; and the mind looks forward with regret to the prospect 


that this beautiful forest must some day fall before the emigrant’s axe. 

With the Roman Catholic missionaries who founded San Francisco, our chapter 
began, and it closes with two illustrations representing, the one, their College at 
Santa Clara, given above, and the other, the early mission buildings erected by them 
at Monterey, which we present on the opposite page. 

Santa Clara, a few miles south of San Francisco, was the original centre of the 
Franciscan mission, and it is now the seat of a Jesuit College which draws stu- 
dents from all the Pacific States. Sheltered amid groves of oaks and cedars, over-. 
looking the ocean, and defended by high mountains from the violence of the winds, 
the establishment of Santa Clara, by its situation and by the landscape which sur- 


rounds it, would offer an inexpressible attraction to him who seeks a poetic home, 


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2 | SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 295 


far from the world and its sordid cares. Here the Franciscans made their head- 


quarters, and hence, in every direction, at the close of the last century, they car- 
ried on their work of civilizing and Christianizing the Indians. Working amid many 


difficulties, they had, however, accomplished much good, when they were driven out 


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Mission. Monterey. 


by the Mexicans, and their system destroyed. Years after came the Jesuits, and 
directing their labors to an entirely different end, worked with no less energy and 


patience. Their establishment now numbers forty priests and nineteen lay-brothers ; 


it has about two hundred students; its library contains twelve thousand volumes. 


i 
i 


| 


296 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


It is worth while to note in passing that it was a Jesuit who planted the first. 


vineyard in Santa Clara, and established the first wine-press in California. OF all 
Californian wines at this day, that of the Mission is the one most esteemed by con- 


noisseurs. 
Santa Clara is an American city, full of Anglo-Saxon life; Monterey, on the 


contrary, is all Spanish and Indian. In Monterey men boast of their ancestry, and 


put on airs of being old Castilians. 

The Franciscan mission at Monterey had the same history as that of Santa Clara, 
and shares in the same decay. Only the old cloisters yet stand, and imagination 
peoples them still with venerable figures in the traditional dress of their order, read- 
ing their breviaries, or pacing up and down in solitary meditation, quite unmindful that 
but a few miles away are the stir and uproar, the money-making, the extravagance 
and luxury, the crime, — in a word, the modern American life, of the great city which 


bears the name of their patron saint. 


———— 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 297 


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N Good Friday, the 21st of April, 1519, Cortez, the Spanish con- 


queror, landed upon the coast of Mexico. The spot where he 


Glee) 


touched ground received from him the name of Vera Cruz, the 


“ City of the True Cross,” in honor of the day, although it was 


not till the close of the century that anything like a town really 


=e" (aileelco) 


existed there, and it received its city charter only as early as 
1615. 

“ Approaching Vera Cruz from the landward side, as represented in 
A Y, IN the illustration (page 299), the white walls, the domes and towers of the 
wee city, appear in silhouette over a line of sandy hillocks known as Medanos. 


©) Here and there a few white houses with flat roofs, shaded by palm- and 


D 

GC f banana-trees, mark an oasis in the midst of the arid, or else marshy 
ap ' desert which stretches around the town. In the horizon shines and 
a sparkles the sea. As we approach, the line of ramparts, with their bas- 
M tions and their curtains, becomes distinct; entering the city, the traveller 


; is pleased with the air of opulence which prevails, the broad and well- 

: paved streets, and the extensive and elegant houses. Many of the dwell- 
ings are richly decorated; there are balconies covered with delicately-arched galleries 
supported by graceful colonnettes ; there are gargoyles worthy of a Gothic cathedral ; 
there are bas-reliefs in endless variety. A singular feature of the streets of Vera Cruz 
is the presence of multitudes of small black vultures, which serve as city scayen- 
gers, and in consideration of these services enjoy complete immunity from molesta- 
tion of every kind. By night they perch on the cornices of dwelling-houses and on 


the tops of the public buildings. From the windows of his hotel the traveller sees 


q 


them, at twilight, flying in crowds towards the cupola of the cathedral and the tower 


298 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


of the government house, where they establish themselves for the night, sitting in long 
black rows which are irresistibly comic to behold. 

Opposite the city, about half a mile out to sea, stands the Castle of San Juan 
de Ulloa, on an islet of coral formation. The castle is an irregular parallelogram 
with four bastions, one of which bears a light-house, and another the ruins of a 
tower, partly destroyed in 1838, at the time of the French bombardment. All this 
fortification, as well as the walls and public buildings and most of the houses of 
Vera Cruz, are built of a kind of madrepore, the only stone found in the neigh- 
borhood. Only the curtain of San Fernando, which looks towards the city, is of hard 
stone, brought from Spain, it is said, a little at a time, in merchant-ships upon which 
the duty was made obligatory of transporting each a certain number of hewn stones. 

The city of Mexico is, without question, the finest in the republic. The houses 
are usually three stories in height, and built in so liberal fashion that it would be 
easy to make two stories out of one, and a whole suite out of each separate room. 
They are painted in rather crude tints; yellow, for the most part, predominates. 
Here, also, are gargoyles of much character, and beautiful iron-work adorns the bal- 
conies and the lower windows. « The streets are well paved and have good side- 
walks, and are crowded all day long by a population who seem to have little else 
to do but to amuse themselves in the open air. 

Sixty churches and forty convents, with all their personnel of priests, monks, 
and nuns, — gray, black, white, and blue, — give a strongly marked character to the 
city. A pretty custom prevails in Mexico, full of the perfume of past ages. At 
six every evening rings the Oracion, the Angelus; all the inhabitants stand _ still, 
uncover their heads, and wish one another buena noche. In-doorg the same scene 
occurs, and in the fields all the farm servants gather at the sound to kiss the mas- 
ter’s hand. 

The Convent of La Mercia (page 300) is an immense building, in other respects 
not remarkable, but containing in its cloister the most exquisite instance of Moorish 
architecture in the city of Mexico. Situated as it is in the very heart of a popu- 
lous quarter, this cloister, in its silence and solitude, forms an impressive contrast 
with the bustle and noise outside. An incomparable sadness prevails within its walls. 
Now and then an aguador comes to fill his water-jars at the little fountain in the 
centre of the paved court, and the quaint garments of the nuns flutter as they walk 
under the arches, or a group of tourists invade the solitude, involuntarily hushing 
their noisy chatter ; but more frequently not a living creature is to be seen in the 
immense galleries, and not a sound can be heard save the drip of the fountain, and 
the dulled roar of the city, coming in from over the roofs which surround the 


enclosure. , 


FARRSTO Maa (Coa. 


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300 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


The Alameda (page 301) is the finest of all the public parks in the city. It 
contains many beautiful gardens which would be an ornament to the cities of the 
Old World. Founded in 1592, it was planted with poplars and willows that had 
grown to magnificent size, when, in 1730, a traveller counted some four thousand 
of them. At the present day this park is well kept as regards walls, and avenues, 
and fountains, and gardens, but many of its trees have disappeared. It contains, 
however, enough shade to make it an agreeable resort, where children play and the 


idle loiterer sits with his book. 


i, 


(I 


Convent of La Mercia. 


A favorite excursion from the city of Mexico leads to the Castle of Chapulte- 
pec (page 302). An oasis of green, Chapultepec, the little hillock, two hundred feet 
high, rises amid the valley, surrounded with running water and covered with splen- 
did vegetation. Magnificent cypresses, whose trunks are seventy-five or eighty feet 
in circumference, rear their leafy heads, defying the passage of centuries to abate 
from their vigor and luxuriance. 

Chapultepec is one of the most ancient historic places in the republic. In the 
eighth century, according to old chronicles, the hill was already occupied by a pop- 


ulation remarkable for their industry and civilization. For many centuries it was held 


by the nomad people from the north till the Mexican hosts nossessed themselves of — 


s 7 


* 
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, SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 301 


it. Chapultepec then became a sort of shrine to which pilgrimages were made; and 
as popular devotion cooled, the Aztec kings made an historic museum of it, until 
in the time of Montezuma II. it served as the imperial residence. The modern castle, 
built by the Viceroy Matias de Galvez, was transformed in 1841 into a_ military 
school, and more recently Miramon, having restored it, made the castle his residence. 

A. journey of a few miles to the east of the city of Mexico brings the traveller 
to the half ruined village of Tlalmanalco. In the midst of the cemetery, near the mod- 


ern church, rise the superb arches (see page 304) whose construction dates back to 


The Alameda. 


the first years of the Conquest. -These ruins, according to M. Laverriére, are the 
remains of a monastery of the Franciscans, left by them unfinished. 

The architecture of these arches is truly remarkable, and the form of the col- 
umns, the capitals, and the carvings, suggest the Moorish, the Gothic, and the 
Renaissance ; while the leading conception is Spanish, reminding one of the Alham- 
bra, and the ornamentation has the true Mexican stamp,—rich, capricious, fantastic, 


and in part symbolic. The ruims of Tlalmanalco are unique in their kind, and it 


302 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


is not, perhaps, too much to say that there is nothing in Mexico to be compared with 
them in value and interest to the student of architecture. 

A. reminiscence of the original inhabitants of the country is found in the Float- 
ing Gardens represented on page 303, an industry of prehistoric date, now turned 
to the purpose of supplying the city of Mexico with vegetables and flowers. The 
population of Santa Anita and Ixtacalco, two pretty little villages near the city, is 
composed exclusively of Indians, a simple folk, scarcely changed in any respect from 
the condition of their forefathers at the time of the conquest. They are all land- 
owners, but their estates are little garden-plots destined to float upon the lake, and 
io lay out these gardens requires long preliminary labor. Before planting their flow- 
ers, they must prepare a sort of raft, made of layers of reeds and rushes, and it 


is not till this has been well constructed, and compacted by time, that the fertile soil 


Castle of Chapultepec. 


is brought in baskets and by slow degrees packed upon this foundation, fragile yet 
durable. 

At certain times of the year nothing is more beautiful than these gardens, filled 
with all the floral splendor of Europe, to which are added wonderful varieties of 
native growth. From the avails of these chinampas the Indians of the two villages 
live in great comfort. To cultivate them is an easy task, and to tow them about 
over the surface of the lake requires strength, but little industry. A strong rope 
and a canoe with sturdy rowers is all that is needed, and it is harvest time all the 


year round in these well-watered gardens, fertilized by the glowing Mexican sun. 


From Vera Cruz a steamer runs to Havana, stopping at Sisal, one of the few 


seaport towns of Yucatan. The passage is made in three days, and from Sisal 


the traveller makes his way some hundred miles into the interior, in search of the 


* 


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ii 


Mt 


iin TI MNT Ta ae RMT TTT 


NW Ns AM 
Me 


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FLOATING GARDENS OF MEXICO. 


304 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


remarkable ruins which render Yucatan exceptionally attractive to the archxologist. 
The two most important groups are those of Chi-Chen and those of Uxmal, which 
we shall briefly describe. | 

The edifices yet standing at Chi-Chen are all found within a circumference of 
two miles, although outside of this space are ruins extending over a considerable 
region. ‘These would seem to have been structures of less consequence, while the 
group of buildings in the centre were evidently their important public edifices. What 


were the exact uses for which these huge masses of masonry were intended it is not 


Ruins of Tlalmanalco. 


easy to say, but names have been applied to them by explorers in accordance with 
their conjectured design. 

They stand on a succession of terraces, composed of rubble imbedded in mortar, 
and held together by finished walls of fine concrete limestone. From these terraces — 
the buildings rise perpendicularly generally to one half their height where there are 
entablatures, above which to the cornice, the facade is laid off in compartments which 
are elaborately decorated with stone sculpture, illustrated with various hieroglyphical fig- 
ures, and varied by elaborate borders, the whole work being executed with great accuracy 


and precision. In height these buildings rarely exceed twenty-five feet, and they seem 


af 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 305 


to have been long and narrow, and windowless. The rooms within, lighted only 
by the doorways, were finished with a sort of white stucco, and painted in fresco, 
the colors being still in good preservation, sky-blue and light green predominating. 
The doorways are rectangular and about seven feet in height, stone rings and holes 
at their sides indicating that doors once swung in them. 


The ruined structure, of which a portion is here represented, is called “the 


——s 


== 


Bas-relief of Tigers. Circus, Chi-Chen. 


Church” by the natives, but has rather the appearance of a circus or gymnasium. 
A thicket of tangled vegetation surrounds it, and the roots of the trees that grow 
on its top have penetrated and broken apart the massive stone work, leaving little 
of the decoration perfect save the bas-relief of tigers, representing these animals, two 
by two, separated by a circular medallion containing lesser circles. 

The principal building of Chi-Chen has been called the “Palace of the Nuns; ” 


306 3 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


but probably “the Palace of the Vestals” would be a designation more in harmony 
with the early Mexican religions. ‘The fagade on the opposite page measures thirty-two 
feet in length and twenty in height. Over the doorway is a heavy stone lintel, con- 
tainnmg two double rows of hieroglyphics, with a sculptured ornament between ; and 
an oval medallion above contains a representation of a human figure in sitting pos- 
ture, with a curious head-dress of feathers and tassels. The ornaments of this fagade 
are composed of small square blocks of stone cut to the depth of an inch and a 


half, apparently with the most delicate tools, and inserted into the wall. The wall 


ill mM 
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vA Wil Vis vpnonghil 
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a 


North Fagade of the Nuns’ Palace. Chi-Chen. 


itself is made of large blocks of limestone set in a mortar as durable as the stone 
itself. ‘The north fagade of the same building is represented above. 

A few rods to the south of the Palace of the Nuns is a structure which has been 
called La Carcel, “the Prison,” (page 309). It stands on a platform of masonry, of 
which the angles and sides were beautifully laid with immense stones, lessening in size 
towards the top. ‘This building is surrounded with ruins and overgrown with rank 
grass and vines, and its level summit is covered with a deep soil on which trees and 
grass grow luxuriantly. , 


A few miles to the east of Chi-Chen are the ruins of Uxmal. The principal 


aa 7 


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CHI-CHEN.- 


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PALACE OF THE NUNS. 


BAN | 


308 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


building is the Governor’s House, a vast and splendid pile of ruins, standing upon 
a platform five hundred feet long and four hundred and fifteen broad. The building 
itself is two hundred and seventy feet in length, eighty-two in width, and thirty in 
height. The whole building is plain (unlike those of Chi-Chen) from base to mould- 
ings, which run through the centre over the doorways; above which to the top are 
ornaments and sculptured work in great profusion, and of the most rich and strange 
workmanship. 


The fagade (page 307) presents the most remarkable elegance and finish; all 


i 


hi ih 


North Facade of the Nuns’ House. Uxmal. 


the stone work is as sharp in the angles as if cut with a knife, and the mould- 
ings have an admirable freedom of design and accuracy of detail. 

The extensive remains a few rods distant from the Govyernor’s House, in a north- 
erly direction, are designated by explorers the Nuns’ House. It comprises four great 
ranges of buildings, placed on the sides of a quadrangular terrace, measuring about 
eleven hundred feet around, and varying in height from fifteen to twenty-four feet. 
The northern range has rooms and corridors, the walls and pillars of which are still 
remaining. This range has a wide terrace in front, and commands a view of the 
whole group of buildings. The front wall has five doorways, the lintels and sides 
of which have fallen in and filled the interior with their debris. About a third of 


auinier 
Meads 


a 


/ | Mo st: 
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(hu Ne 


CHI-CHEN. 


LA CARCEL. 


| | | | | i Wh | | Sih : i | I ‘Hy a ‘ - Mu A 
i en | (Oe Nee 


310 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


the ornaments upon this facade remain, and give evidence of great power in combi- 
nation, and extraordinary skill in the use of materials. 

*'Three questions occur to the reader,” says Mr. Norman, who visited this region 
in 1841, and to whom we are indebted for details given above: “first, By whom 
they built ? and third, For what pur- 


after ascribing the work to certain Indian races, who had attained a 


were these ruins built ? second, When were 
And, 


high degree of civilization, and perished many centuries ago, he remarks: “ Whatever 


pose? ” 


diversity of origin may have existed among the races of Indians whose remains are 
the burden of our speculations, one thing is certain, that the builders of Chi-Cher 
It is also pretty obvious 


and Uxmal excelled in the mechanic and the fine arts. 


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\ M\ N A lee RR | He CPL A id Sleic Fes as 
14 wet CLAIR 


pS Pe TT 
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a MUNG WAY. 7 Ai NW) on : re Se eR 


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Details of Facade of the Governor’s House at Uxmal. 


that Chi-Chen and the other cities of Yucatan were built by a nation of slaves. 
They were monuments raised to the glory of the few at the expense of the thou- 
sands.” | 

In respect to the date of their erection, Mr. Norman entertains no doubt that 
the American ruins belong to the remotest period, and are contemporary with those 
of Thebes and T'admor. Evidently the city of Chi-Chen was an antiquity when the 
foundations of the Parthenon at Athens, and the Cloaca Maxima at Rome, were laid; 


and in reply to his third question, he adds the supposition that these structures 


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MEXICAN GARDEN. 


312 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


were designed in part for religious uses, and in part for observatories for the study — 


of the heavenly bodies; also it may be true that, like the Pyramids of Egypt, they were ; 


SSS designed as burial places for the royal and sacerdotal rulers 
_ of the land. | 
On pages 311 and 312 our artist has sought to res 


sexquisite buildings may have stood in the days of their 


_ pristine splendor. The palace was not complete without its 


_ garden, and not only was this garden filled with superb trees 


= and flowering plants in almost endless variety, but it con- 


= tained fish-ponds and aviaries, and enclosures filled with 
; eraceful creatures of the wood, adding all the charm of life 
~and motion to the magnificence of the inanimate world. 
The Mexican legend which tells of Quetzacoatl, the demi- | 


god of his race, describes the Paradise whence, like Adam, he 


tion to all the usual luxuriance of royal pleasure-grounds, 
_it is said that the pavement of the walks and the edges 


-of the flower-beds were of purest silver, wrought and 


. chased like the jewel-box of a queen! 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 313 


Cr BecA:: 


is ‘ i, 
LS oth NF Sey 
‘C aN Li », 
Sy, “ROM Sisal to Havana is one of the most charming voyages the 


traveller can make. It is impossible to describe the beauty of 
nights upon the Gulf of Mexico. The moonlight, the serene and 
fathomless azure of the sky, the brilliant stars, the faint, feath- 
ery clouds, and the soft air warm with perpetua} summer, render 
every moment a delight. 

Arriving outside too late to enter the narrows, we await 
vi sunrise. Rising and falling on the long swell of the Gulf, we watch the 
A), daylight breaking over the purple slopes, barren enough, save where some 
aie - planter’s house nestles in dark-green groves of royal palm. From the dis- 
By tant mountain ranges to the surf-beaten rocks, the colors change from gray 
i. to blue, purple, and gold, as the dawn changes to daylight. The entrance 
@ , of the bay is pleasing but not impressive. There is nothing grand in the 
Any low scrubby hill on your left, as you enter where the famous forts, El 
< Moro and Cabaiias, are bristling with cannon. The city on your right, 


ey lying on a level patch of land between the bay and the open sea, looks 


gay and sunny with its quaintly painted houses, — green, red, blue, and yellow, — and 
its multitude of church domes and steeples in every variety of questionable style and 
taste. 

The streets are built to suit the heat of the country, very narrow, paved with 
large stones, and bordered by grim-looking stone houses seldom more than two 
stories high. The footways are usually very narrow, about two feet in width, so 
that two pedestrians can scarcely pass each other, while the crowd of cabs and other 
vehicles, driven at full speed, renders the roadway a scene of indescribable confusion. 
Many of the streets are shaded by awnings stretched across from house to house, 
so that the traveller drives along under a sort of extended tent, not unpleasant in 
the heat of the day. 

From the labyrinth of streets composing the old town, you emerge into the new 


town, which has been laid out since the demolition of the ancient line of fortifica- 


314 . VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


tions. These streets are wider, and the houses are built higher, than in the old 
portion of the city nearer the harbor. 7 

The public gardens and squares of Havana are carefully tended ; they are well 3 
stocked with flowers, dense shady trees, and royal palms, and are embellished with 
fountains, the sight and sound of which are delightfully refreshing in such a climate. 


The Captain-General’s country-seat, near the outskirts of the town, is surrounded by — 


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Avenue of Palms. 


beautiful, though somewhat 


neglected gardens. The avenues of stately royal palm, 


cocoas, mangoes, and other tropical fruits, are remarkably fine, and a labyrinth with 


hedges of the red and crimson hibiscus presents a mass of color of wonderfully gor- 


geous effect. 
the Cerro, lined with the marble-porticoed villas of the Cuban aristocracy. In style 


Returning, we follow the long street which forms the suburb called | 


ae 


HAVANA, 


mail 


316 . VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


these villas are much alike, built close to the dusty road, with marble pillars sup- 
porting the roof, which projects over the wide veranda. A large entrance-hall, strange 
to say, includes also the coach-house, reception-rooms, and billiard-rooms, all on the 
same floor, the latter rooms facing the garden, which stretches back from each yilla. 
The floors are of white marble or colored tiles, as are also the walls, while the 
furniture consists of a few arm-chairs, rocking-chairs, and a table, all open to view 
through the unglazed windows. 

Three or four days suffice to exhaust the sights and curiosities of Havana, and 
the traveller is glad to exchange the noise and bad air.of the city for the charm- 
ing variety of a day at some one of the great sugar estates which make Cuba 
famous all the world over. 

Passing the swampy head of the Bay of Havana covered with low mangrove 
trees, we cross an undulating country bare and destitute of timber, but traversed by 
good roads in the immediate neighborhood of the capital, and sprinkled with farm- 
houses. As we advance the scenery improves, the green mountain ridges on either 
hand delighting our eyes. Rising abruptly to a height of some fourteen hundred feet, 
these ridges are clothed from base to summit with low green scrub, above which 
towers the gray stem and drab foliage of the royal palm, standing up clear against 
the sky-line on the rocky ridge. 

Sometimes we cross valleys of great beauty, through which wind streams whose 
banks are overhung by the graceful bamboo and flowering shrubs; sometimes we 
plunge into the tangled growth of natural forests (see page 317) which still cover 
a large portion of the island. Here the wild vine, stretching from tree to tree, the 
crimson and white convolvulus, covering the shrubs with a brilliant mass of blos- 
som, and many other creeping and climbing plants, form a mass of low vegetable 
growth impenetrable to man, save where he cuts his way with knife and hatchet. 
Out of this low growth rise to great height palm and laurel, and hoary old cotton- 
trees with gorgeously colored foliage. 

The hacienda, or planter’s country-house, stands in a grove of cocoa-nut palms, 
bananas, and orange-trees, and is approached by a perfectly straight avenue, bordered 
by double rows of the royal palm, planted within a few feet of one another, on 
either hand (page 314). The buildings themselves are plain and very simple. There 
is no display nor attempt at what we call “comfort.” In general, in the island of 
Cuba no man lives in the country for his own pleasure: the manufactory is the 
main point, and the residence of the proprietor but a vastly inferior consideration. 

At the time when the cultivation of coffee was the chief industry, the country 
presented a widely different appearance. The cafetal, or coffee plantation, was like 
a vast park with wide avenues and an enormous growth of trees of every variety, 


under whose shadow grew the coffee-plant to a height of five or six feet. 1: was 


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NATURAL FOREST. CUBA. 


318 - VOYAGES AND. TRAVELS. 


horticulture, says Mr. Dana, on the most extensive scale imaginable. But after twenty 


years or more, the Cuban planters learned that Brazil, the states of Central America, 


and the more southern of the West India Islands, could produce coffee to far better 
advantage. ‘The successive hurricanes of 1843 and 1845, joined to the colonial sys- . 
tem of the metropolis, put an end to the coffee plantations of Cuba. The deserted 
estates were devoted to the culture of the cane, and gradually, in the west and 
north, and then more and more in the eastern and southern portions of the island, 
the charming cafetals were laid waste, the trees cut down, the plough passed through 
the avenues and paths, and the denuded country became a sea of canes. 

A sugar plantation is neither a garden nor an orchard. It is no longer the 
beautiful home which the cafetal was. The proprietor’s family live in the suburbs’ 
of Havana or Matanzas, or even seek a more distant abode in some one of the great 
cities of the United States. 


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SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 319 


GUIANA AND BRAZIL. 


t hs 
A 


. UIANA is the name applied to that extensive region of equatorial 
& America lying between the Orinoco, the Amazon, the Rio Negro, 
(4. and the ocean. This great territory has been divided among four 


nations — Brazil,“ France, Holland, and England. We present illus- 


: 

< trations of French Guiana, —otherwise known as Cayenne, from the 
ww Va name of its capital, — because this colony has been very much brought 
before the notice of the civilized world as the place of deporta- 
tion of French criminals, and notably those banished for political offences. 
Soon after Canada was lost to France, the French government decided 
to establish colonies of great size and importance in South America, 


: 
Y by way of compensation: about the middle of the eighteenth century 


an attempt was made in Guiana, but no enterprise was ever more dis- 
astrous or ill managed. Ten thousand emigrants were dispatched from 
France, chiefly from Alsace and Lorraine, to take possession of these 
vast solitudes ; but instead of sending out in advance the provisions 


and materials necessary for the colonists, — instead of preparing the coun- 


try in a degree for their reception, —instead of having careful regard to 
the time of year and the weather best suited for them, the same fleet which brought 
this unhappy crowd brought all their supplies, and landed them, in dire and utter 
confusion, on an island ten leagues to windward of Cayenne, in the midst of the 
rainy season. In an incredibly short space of time famine and pestilence had swept 
them from the earth, and the history of this disaster filled the civilized world with 
the impression that this region was but a lazar-house over which brooded perpetu- 
ally the shadow of death. 

Such an impression is, however, unjust. The climate is indeed hot, and the rainy 
season malarious, but it is no worse than many other tropical portions of the globe 
which have been made available for the residence of civilized man. To France, how- 


ever, it is a penal colony and nothing more, and it owes whatever prosperity it 


320 


possesses 


to 


VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


the presence of the convicts and of the personnel accompanying them, 


Cayenne. 


Were transportation to cease and be trans- 


ferred to another colony, it would be a 


death-blow to French Guiana, and a few 
years would find the primeval forest again 


taking possession of a domain which three 


centuries have hardly sufficed to wrest 


from it. 

The city of Cayenne, a view of which 
is here given, is situated on the sea-shore, 
and, lying in a kind of delta, is often 
called an island. It is but a small town, 
and contains only wooden houses ; it is 
Pueronnded with a swampy moat, and poor 
ramparts, which form a kind of irregular 
hexagon, commanded by a fort whose nat- 
ural position is all that gives it impor- 
tance. | 

The’ only buildings of consequence in 
the town are the Government House and 
the Jesuit Mission (page 321). The latter 
presents a charming appearance, the build- 
ings being entirely surrounded by a beauti- 
ful orange grove and a wilderness of shrubs 
of every variety, which, in the season of 
blossom, fill the air with delicious perfume, 
and attract scores of humming-birds that 
balance in the air and fly about among the 
flowers like butterflies. 

The ‘chief article in furnishing a 
house in Cayenne or its neighborhood is 
the hammock. One often sees four in a 
room, and it is a great art to poise one’s 
self gracefully in this airy netting. It is 
only justice to the Creoles of Cayenne to 
say that they possess this art in the high- 
est degree. They sit gracefully, or, rather, 
half recline, swinging like a bird on a 


bough, an occasional tap with one foot on 


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JESUIT MISSION. 


322 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. : 


the floor keeping the motion up without interruption. The hammock serves also 
a carriage, and in this use it is quite indispensable. Near the city there are a fe 
good roads, it is true, one of which we give below ; but at the distance of a fe 
miles inland, nothing but the rudest paths. through the forest are found. To tray- 


erse these, a hammock is slung from an enormous bamboo pole, and the traveller, 


«¢* 


Road near Cayenne. 


lying comfortably at full length, is borne along by two stalwart negroes who sup- 
port the pole upon their shoulders. . 

The country is full of rivers and small streams, but navigation is everywhere 
impeded by waterfalls, which, however they may add to the picturesqueness of the 
country (see page 323), are to be regretted from an economic point of view. At the 


same time, the native wealth of Guiana is so great that it is impossible to believe 


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CASCADE ON THE ROSOTA. 


324 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


it will remain forever so nearly a wilderness as it now is. Cotton, indigo, and coffee 
grow here to the best advantage; there is great variety of spices, also pepper, espe-_ 
cially of the kind known as: Cayenne ; pine-apples are the finest in the world, and— 
many varieties of fruit unknown to more temperate climes. The fine woods used for 
furniture abound: mahogany, violet-wood, satin-wood, rosewood, are as common as 
the pine-tree in New Hampshire. 

Nearly the same is true of the great region of the Rio Negro, lying south of 
the Guianas. This affluent of the Amazon is twelve hundred miles in length, and by 
means of the Cassiquiari, one of its tributaries, makes a connection between the Ama- 
zon and the Orinoco. 


Its waters, which seem in their mass as black as ink, and which really haye a 


Falls of the Rio Negro. 


distinct brown color quite perceptible in a glass, make a strange contrast to the yel- 
low flood of the Amazon. At Barra, its point of junction with the Amazon, it ag 
a mile and a half wide; further up it widens considerably, making deep bays ten 

* twelve miles across. Further on, again, it separates into several channels divided 
* innumerable islands, the total width being not less than twenty miles, and for 
several hundred miles of its course the two banks of the river cannot. be seen at 
once. 

Ascending the river still further we come to its passage through the Sierra of 


Curicuriari, and here its aspect and that of the country changes entirely. Irregular 


for a distance of forty miles. 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 325 


conical masses of granite rise in every direction, with numerous bare precipices where 


yeins and masses of quartz shine white as silver. The rapids begin and continue 


Small rocky islands and bare = : = : == = 


masses of rock fill the _ river. 


The stream flows rapidly round 


projecting points, and the main 


channel is full of eddies and 


foam. Beds and ledges of rock 


cross the entire width of the 
river, and through their chasms 
the water rushes with terrific 
force, forming dangerous whirl- 
pools below. 

Most of the principal falls 
and rapids in this long series 
have names. At Sao Gabriel 
are the principal falls. Here an 
island in the middle of the river 
divides it into two channels, along 
each of which rolls a tremendous 
flood of water down an_ incline 
formed of submerged rocks. 

Above this region, the Rio 
Negro again spreads out calm 
and placid, and with water black 


as ever. At intervals along the 


shore are villages of thatched 


GAS : View on the Rio Negro. 
mud huts, sometimes whitewashed, 4 


sometimes of their native earth color. Back of these lies the illimitable virgin forest. 
A little way into this forest the road leads: at first a tolerable path, it soon be- 
comes a mere track a few inches wide, winding among thorny creepers, and over 
deep beds of decaying leaves. Gigantic buttress-trees, tall, fluted stems, strange palms, 
and elegant tree-ferns abound on every side. Hard roots rise up in the path, swamp 
and mud alternate with rocks. In short, it is a true wilderness. 

All along the coast of Brazil countless streams fall into the ocean, and the tide 
fights back the current of the stream, as at the mouth of the Sagnassou (page 326) ; 
but till the traveller approaches Rio Janeiro there is really little that tempts him to 


explore. . 


326 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


Superb, however, is the Brazilian capital, as one approaches it by sea, — great 
rocky masses rising on the right and left, like a vast gateway to the harbor. On the. 
southern side is the great Pao de Agucar, the Sugar Loaf, the well-known landmark — 


for ships. Entering through this portal we find ourselves in a great amphitheatre, : 
#4 


where the water is like a tranquil inland lake: flower-clad islands lie about us, and 
in the background rises a well-wooded chain of hills. Re 

Drawing nearer the city, its white houses and churches and forts make a charm- 
ing contrast with the emerald verdure of the shore and the dark blue of the water, 
Near the sea is the Paseo Publico, or public promenade (page 328); it is a small 


garden, surrounded with walls and protected from the sea by a perpendicular quay of 


mf * 
aM 
= 


Mouth of the Sagnassou. 


hewn stone. 
most attractive in the evening, when the cool sea-breeze tempers the extreme heat 


Its shady avenues of mangoes, bread-fruit tree, and«the rose-apple, are 


of the day. | 
A. favorite excursion alike for visitors and residents at Rio is the drive to the 


Botanic Garden, about eight miles from the city. The place is beautiful, as any 
place must be in the tropics that is called a garden, but it is somewhat neglected 
and overgrown. The palm avenue represented on the opposite page is its most char- 
acteristic feature. “I wish it were possible,” says Professor Agassiz, “to give in words 


the faintest idea of the architectural beauty of this colonnade of palms, with their 


green crowns meeting to form the roof. Straight, firm, and smooth as stone columns, 


NTI 


cll TO 


AVENUE OF PALMS IN THE BOTANIC GARDEN, 


328 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


a dim vision of colonnades in some ancient Egyptian temple rises to the imagination, 


as one looks down the long vista.” 

This palm is the Oreodoxra oleracea, and in the case referred to has reached a_ 
height of eighty feet. Many other varieties exist in Brazil, their diversity being 
much greater even than that of our oaks, so that it would require a comprehensive 
comparison with a majority of our forest trees to match the differences they exhibit fl 


among themselves. In the opinion of the distinguished naturalist above quoted, there 


ee 


Paseo Publico. ’ 


are four essentially different forms among palms: the tall ones, with a slender and 
erect stem, terminating with a crown of long, feathery leaves, or with broad fan-— 
shaped leaves; the bushy ones, whose leaves rise apparently in tufts from the ground, — 
the stem remaining hidden under the foliage ; the brush-like ones, with a small stem 
and a few rather large leaves ; and, finally, the winding, creeping, slender species. 
T'o the imagination, however, there is but one palm-tree, and that has the stately — 


shaft and feathery top of the palms of the Botanic Garden in Rio. 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 329 


THE old city of the Incas, Cuzco, the an- 
cient Peruvian capital, lies at the astonishing height 
of eleven thousand three hundred and eighty feet 
above the level of the sea; that is to say, three 
thousand seven hundred and seventy feet higher than the hospice of St. Bernard in 
Switzerland. Yet the latter is in a region of perpetual snow, while Cuzco stands in 
a beautiful valley covered with fields of barley and lucern, and on its level, both 
east and west, lie some of the finest forests of the mid-sierra, and some of the most 


fertile farming land in all the great continent of South America. 


We shall present several views obtained on a journey to the east of Cuzco, and 


330 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


afterwards another series representing an excursion down the valley of the Apurimac, 
a region lying west of that city. 

Let us imagine ourselves starting from Cuzco in the early morning, with a large 
cavalcade and a numerous train of pack-mules, carrying all the necessary outfit for < 
such an expedition. A day’s journey brings us to the village of Huaro; and on the 
following morning, leaving the village, we desert the main road, which keeps along 
the higher ground up the valley of the Huilcanota, through the Pass of the Sierra, 


and so on to Titicaca, the great mountain-lake of Peru. Our path descends by a 


f t 
Hifi) 


MWe) 
MM) MOM 


Mountain near Huaro. 


succession of zigzags towards the bottom of the ravine in which flows the little 
stream. ‘The ravine itself, strewn with enormous rocks and a multitude of small, round 
pebbles, is about half a mile in width. Through it the river runs, in the dry season 
a mere thread of silver, but at the time when the snows melt, transformed into a mad 
torrent, it fills the whole width of the ravine, carrying in its muddy current huge f 
rocks detached from the mountain side, and paving-stones from the villages through 
which it passes. 
Reaching the opposite bank, our cavaleade prepares itself to climb the huge moun- 


tain of clay-slate which bars the way. This enormous mass from base to summit 


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HACIENDA OF LAURAMARCA. 


332 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


presents the usual stratification of slate (see page 330), varying in color from bluish 
gray to a shade almost black, the surface in many places haying a vitrified appear- 
ance, as if it had been subjected to intense heat. Steep and narrow footpaths, 
invisible at a distance, so hidden are they by the salient or retreating angles of the 
stratification, lead to the summit ; and both men and horses require often to rest, in 
the long and wearisome ascent, to accustom the lungs to the extremely rarefied air of 
this great height. 


Three hours’ steady climbing brings us to the top, and we find ourselves upon a 


The Gate of the Cordilleras. 


vast plateau, which stretches away to the horizon like a limitless plain. No road 
crosses this region, but the muleteers well know their way, and direct us east-southeast 
with the certainty of a hunting-dog following a scent, and towards night one of them 
cries out “Lauramarca!” It is the hacienda, where we are to pass the night. (See 
page 331.) 

The high table-lands of the Peruvian Andes abound in great solitary haciendas 
like this ; but Lauramarca is, or has been till lately, the most important one in all the 
region. <A large stone building with red tile roofs, and quite a little village of Indian 


huts near it, surrounded by a crowd of men and animals, compose the picture as we 


~~ 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 333 


draw nearer, and a salute, as from myriads of tin fish-horns, welcomes the newly arrived 


party. 
The limits of this estate are not well defined, but it extends over a great variety 


of soil, and by reason of the diversities in elevation, has a great variety of productions. 


Its plateaus, adjacent to the snow line, nourish countless herds of cattle and flocks 


of sheep, llamas, and the alpaca. ‘The flesh of these animals, fresh or dried, their 


wool, horns, and hides, also their butter and cheese, are sent down the mountains, and 


sold all along the Pacific coast. On the slopes of the plateau wander thousands of 


The Cerro Escopal. 


half-wild horses, requiring no care save to be gathered in and branded every three 
years, and sold whenever their owner has need of money.  JBesides this, the agri- 
cultural products of the hacienda are very important, consisting of wheat, oats, barley, 
lucern, and maize, and three kinds of potatoes highly valued in the country. 
Descending the eastern slope of the plateau, we arrive at the base of the Andes 
of Avisca. Crossing their outer rampart, through one of those gaps called in the 
language of the country puncas, or gates, a magnificent region of ice and snow 
appears before us (page 332). This part of the chain of Avisca offers a prodigious 


group of extinct volcanoes, rising one behind another in peaks and needles and crests, 


334 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


in shapeless masses and abrupt descents covered with perpetual snow. ‘Through this. 
region, by wild and dangerous paths, we make our way a distance of ten miles, 
lengthened to double by the circuits of the road, out to the head-waters of the Mar- 
copata, a region of wonderful grandeur and _ beauty. 

The valley here (see page 335) is not over a mile in width; all the way down 
it has its double row of high hills of conical outline, making a solid mountain wall 
for half their height, then separate and wooded to the very top, while behind them 


rise the snowy heights of Apu and Choquechanca, azure in their shadows, and shining 


AOA \ \\ 


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Rio Cadena. 


faint rose-color on the side kissed by the morning sun. ‘Two streams, coming, one 
from the north-west, the other from the south-west, leap from the hillsides like sil- 
very arrows, and directing their parallel course towards the east, meet after three 
miles at the foot of a hill on whose summit stands the village of Marcopata, — a hun- 
dred and ten irregularly placed huts, and a church with a square tower and a roof | 
of thatch. 

Following the valley down, at every mile some new picture charms the eye. It 
is, perhaps, the Cerro Escopal (see page 333), with its singular truncated cone, 


wooded nearly to the summit; or it is the wild dash of the mountain torrents that 


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VALLEY OF THE MARCOPATA. 


336 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


come down to join their waters to those of the main river, like the Cadena, the Cuchua, — 


or the Maniri (pages 334, 336, 337) ; but ever the main stream grows wider and 


stronger, until we find it with broad current, fretted only by a rapid here and there, — 


under the name of the Ccofi, an important branch of one of the main affluents of 
the Amazon (page 339). In all this region, the luxuriance of vegetation and the 


abundance of animal and insect. life surround the traveller with ever new and fas- 


HH it 


AN 
| 


i 


Rio Cuchua. 


cinating variety. Colossal trees abound, and parasitic plants of incredible size and 


strength cling to their trunks, and hang down in great festoons from their long branches. 


Some of the shrubs of this country attain a growth that is truly marvellous; one in~ 


particular, a Rhexia, which attains a height of seven or eight feet, merits the appel- 
lation of the “king of shrubs.” It bears flowers of a great size, of an extremely 


delicate pinkish-violet tint ; its quadrangular stem is striped red and green, and its 


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338 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


five-nerved leaves, covered with a soft down, are bright green above and of a 
orange color on the under side. 

Any reference, however casual, to the flora of Peru, must make mention of the 
Cinchona or Quinquina, as it is variously called, the tree whose bark supplies the well- 
known febrifuge, quinine. The date at which the medicinal virtues of this tree were 
discovered appears to be not far from 1636, at which time it is first mentioned by 


the Spanish chroniclers. To the Incas it evi- 


dently was not known, and it seems to have 


been first successfully used in 1638, when the 


Spanish viceroy’s wife was cured of a fever by 
its administration. On her return to Spain 
this lady carried a large supply of Quinquina 
bark, and distributed it among her friends. 


Some years later, Jesuit missionaries, returning 


from South America, introduced the new rem- 


edy at Rome, and exerted themselves to extend 


its use throughout Italy; and France and 
England also received it not far from the 
same time. Finally, from Linnzeus it received 
scientific classification in the family of Rubi- 


aces, of which he makes it a genus by itself, 


with the name Cinchona officinalis. 


It appears that the conditions requisite for 
the growth of the Cinchona are elevation and 
irregularity of surface, heat by day and a 


much lower temperature by night, and a con- 


stantly moist atmosphere combined with con- 


siderable dryness of soil, all which conditions 


are combined on the Andean slopes, in a belt 


of territory two thousand miles in length and 


go varying in width, but never exceeding two 
Machu-Condoroma. degrees. 

For our western expedition in the Peruvian sierras, we return to the main high- 
way, if so we may call it, of the valley of the Huilcanota, and follow it southward 
to the point where the Sierra of Huilcanota unites with, or rather disappears in, the 
great chain of the western Andes. All the grandeur of the region of perpetual snow 
reigns over the desolate post-hut of Machu-Condoroma, represented above, our first 
station on the western slope of the Cordillera. Two mountain masses, whose dis- 


jointed stratification, fractured, dislocated, here at an angle, there vertical, now re 
+ 


a 


ae ij 


RIO CCONI. 


340 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS, — ‘ 


treating, now overhanging, rise before us, representing in the foreground two huge 
pylons, between which we must pass. One of these masses retains a dark brick-red 
color, as if the central fire which originally lifted and dislocated all its strata kept 
it yet in a dull glow. The other, blackish and streaked with gray, blue, and a 
dull yellow, has an appearance of being vitrified. Through the gap which opens between 
these two, we behold the post-station, a low building of rough stone. From its chimney 
rises a thick cloud of smoke, thrown up with extreme distinctness against the snowy 
background of the mountains behind it. , 


After a few hours’ rest at Machu-Condoroma, our party proceeds on its way. Aa 


Rio de Condoroma. 


the sun rises higher, the white mantle of snow thrown over everything tears away here 
and there, showing the color of the soil; and rivulets, which steal down from the moun- 
tain wall and run across the road, moisten the ochre and clay, and form a muddy 
paste in which the mules’ feet slip, giving their riders no little anxiety, despite the 
proverbial sure-footedness of these useful beasts. 

But the inconveniences of the melting snow, though great, are all forgotten at the 
sight of the Rio de Condoroma, a tumultuous stream which bars the way, and must 
be crossed. Its surface, very quiet in the dry season, now presents a mad play of 


waves, foaming and dashing, and casting their spray high in air. To cross this torrent 


: j 
-. 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 341 


at the spot where we are is impossible, and our only course is to follow it down till 
a ford is reached. This expedient leads us three miles out of our way, but proves 
at last successful. 

About twelve miles of mountain paths, on the other side of the river, brings us to 
an outlet into the circular plain where lies the village of Cailloma, represented below, 
which the inhabitants call Cailloma la Rica, from the wealth of its silver mines. We 
eross the plain diagonally, and as we draw near Cailloma, the herdsmen’s huts and 
cattle-parks seem to advance towards us. A few lights shine here and there in the 


town as we enter, and the muleteers guide the party to the tampu, or caravansary, 


Cailloma la Rica. 


where they are accustomed to lodge with their beasts. The tampu is a great en- 
closure like a farm-yard, open to the sky, and strewn with broken straw and proven- 
der. The lodgings for travellers are the little pens of rude masonry, receiving air and 
light only through the door, which line three sides of the enclosure. 

An expedition through the town occupies an hour of leisure. There are five 
streets and sixty-three houses, besides the herdsmen’s huts and parks of which we 
have before spoken. The church is a rectangular building, built of stone and earth, 
pierced with six windows, and surmounted by two square towers, each coiffed with 


something which may by courtesy be called a cupola. The high altar is flanked by 


ae 


7 


342 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


two chapels, one dedicated to Our Lady of Carmel, the other to St. Joseph, the patron — 
saint of Peru. Both are ornamented with a profusion of votive offerings, reliquaries, 
and lamps of massive silver. A few worthless pictures complete the decoration of the 
holy place. 

From Cailloma we proceed directly west for a few miles, following a road which 
is but a succession of steep declivities and precipices, as far as Lake Vilafro. From 
this lake, a placid blue sheet of water like a mirror of steel set in the ground, flows 
northward a little stream, at first called the Chita, which after a course of several 


leagues, and the reception of nine mountain torrents on the left, and eleven on the 


Basalt Dikes on the Velille. 


right, receives the name of the Apurimac, the Master Brawler of the Indians, and is — 
presently lost in the mighty Amazon, at a point not more than five hundred miles 
distant from the Pacific coast. 

In the infinite variety of the scenes traversed on our northward journey, the 
basalt dikes on the little river Velille, represented above, deserve especial mention. 
Emerging from a rude and dangerous gorge, where the road is a footpath along the 
edge of tremendous precipices, we are suddenly rewarded by this picture, of which 
nothing had given us the slightest preliminary hint. At the opening of the gorge 


the waters of the little stream spread out into a tranquil expanse sixty feet wide, 


‘ 
. a 
a 
4 . 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 843 


becoming as quiet as the stillest lake. The basaltic formations which determine 
this sudden change represent on the two sides of the river enormous piers, reflected 
jn the water with their fluted shafts and architectural characteristics, and the vegetation 
growing luxuriantly upon their tops. Two Indians, kneeling on a raft of porous 


trunks which the weight of their bodies half submerged, gave life to the scene; and, 


Rio Apurimac. 


asking curiously what their occupation here might be, we learned that they were 
fishing for the celebrated suchis, the most delicious fish of the region of the Cor- 
dilleras. 

The same basalt formations characterize much of the scenery in this part of 
the country. A few miles further the road leads within view of the Apurimac, rushing 


along between tall cliffs, like the leaves of a screen, or like the arrangement of side- 


344 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


scenes in a theatre. Between them the yellow and foaming waters, making their way 


down an incline incumbered with rocks, dash and whirl along at a rapid pace. : 


From this point to the source of the 


Rio Mesacancha, the country is a succes- 


sion of verdant plains and arid hill-slopes, 


of which nothing interrupts the monotony. 


Nowhere is seen the cultivated field or the 


thatched hut which betrays the presence of 


man. A little before we reach Chollacchaca, 


which is to furnish our night’s lodging, be- 


tween two wooded slopes of most pictur- 


esque outline, we come upon the cascade 
which is considered the source of the Mesa- 
cancha. It is scarcely possible to imagine 
a more exquisite scene, and one more in 
contrast with the wild grandeur which at- 
tends so many of the mountain torrents of — 


Peru, especially the gorge of the Huarancal- 


qui (see engraving on the opposite page), a 
few miles further on, and the northern limit 


of our expedition. 


From the summit of a hill overgrown 


Source of the Mesacancha. 


with those minute mushrooms called cefas, 
which the Indians bring to market in the cities, where gourmands devour them with 
great approbation, we look down into a gorge formed by the approach of the rocky 
barriers of the stream, to where, far below, a white torrent, all foam, rushes on its 
way. A narrow path leads down from the height on which we stand to the very 
edge of the stream. The guides say the descent is practicable, and we essay it 
(page 345). As we go down, daylight seems to withdraw. Soon the sky is but 
a narrow strip of blue far up between the rocks. When we reach the edge of this 
torrent, whose speed is incalculable, and its uproar deafening, a greenish half light 
which replaces the day of the upper world, wraps all things as in a fog, and gives 
to the scene a strange and supernatural character whose influence we feel but can- 
not explain. 

By aid of some beams placed across the torrent we pass from one bank to the 
other. We ascend a sort of natural staircase cut in the rock on the opposite side, 
and in an hour have left the scene behind us, and with the rapids of the Huaran- 
calqui we bid adieu to the characteristic scenery of the Peruvian Cordillera. The 


region unfolding before us has no similarity to those we have seen among the Andes. 


i 


————SSSSSSSSS 


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GORGE OF THE HUARANCALQUIL. 


346 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


The singular conical peaks, covered from base to summit with luxuriant vegetation, 
and furrowed vertically by mountain torrents, have disappeared. There are now only 
groups of low, rounded hills, either bare or clad with furze, out of which rise, here 
and there, clumps of low bushes. The atmosphere too has changed, and an extremely 
dry air takes the place of that warm dampness which rose out of the shady depths 
of the mountain valleys higher up. 

Proceeding further into this region, which the early missionaries, and after them 
the geographers, have named the Pajonal, we discover that it is far from being so ster- 
ile as has been represented. Besides the great variety of cereals which grow here, 
and give it from a distance a denuded aspect, there are many useful plants and shrubs, 
and after a time we come to dense forests, differing, however, in character from those 
on the Andean slopes. 

All the country is full of rivers, embroidering with threads of silver the broad 
expanse of these great plains, and falling one after another into the Apurimac. At 
the point of meeting of the Huarancalqui and the Apurimac, the latter is about four 
hundred feet broad. Most of these streams are navigable, and the traveller, who 
explores them now in his canoe, and with his Indian guides, cannot but picture to 
himself, as he takes a last look at them, that the day must come when civilization 
will furrow their quiet waters with her swift keels, and lay across these solitary plains 


the network of her iron tracks. 


— 


aa Ey ee 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 347 


NORWAY. 


yr =e ROM Pert to N orway seems an abrupt transition, but may we not 

ay D, with good reason assume that our fellow-travellers, like ourselves, 
are weary with their long wanderings in tropical lands, and will 
hail with delight the keen, fresh wind of northern seas, and the 
wild landscape, where Nature has done eyerything and man noth- 
ing, and a certain air of primitive existence reigns, as if one were 
carried back to the days when the Vikings were, for the moment, 
the greatest and most dreaded power in Hurope ? 

The scenery of Norway is absolutely peculiar. A long narrow country, 
with a mountain chain extending its entire length, and throwing out lateral 
spurs especially towards the west, its sea-coast is one of the most deeply 
indented in the world, its valleys ending in arms of the sea, which wind 
far in among the mountains, and are often extremely narrow, while the rocky 
walls which define them rise sheer two or three thousand feet above the level 
of the water. 

yy Following up the fiords, we come to the dalene, or mountain valleys. 
Like the fiords, these also are deep and narrow; some of them are a hundred miles in 
length; many of them are extremely fertile, and contain numerous farms. Hach valley 
has its river, in some cases its lake, and the various affluents to the main stream dash 
over the walls of the valley in cascades of more or less importance, as the mountain 
barrier is of greater or less height. Along the rivers grow the famous forests of 
Norway. It is estimated that the annual production of the country in timber, deals, 
charcoal, and firewood, brings in a revenue of five million dollars. Oak, beech, ash, 
poplar, and willow are found in varying proportions; the mountain ash, with its superb 
clusters of coral berries, is abundant ; the spruce fir is, however, the principal tree 
in the southern part of the country, replaced towards the Arctic circle by the Scotch 
fir. The luxuriance of flowers is now and then remarkable. It is not uncommon to 


come upon magnificent banks of pansies, extending over at least a hundred sonare 


348 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


yards, in all their tri-colored splendor, filling the atmosphere far around them with 
delicious perfume. 
In forty-eight hours from Hull, across the stormy North Sea, the traveller reaches 


Christiansand. Twelve hours more will bring him to Christiana ; but nobody comes 


to Norway to visit the cities, and it is usual to leave the steamer at Christiansand, 


and strike off at once for the interior and the west coast. The seaport is a rude 
town which looks as if recently peopled by emigrants, having nothing worthy of 
notice about it, except perhaps the quaint situation of a sort of lazaretto (see below), 
built by the sea, on the summit of an almost inaccessible rock. 

About a hundred and fifty miles north of Christiansand is the great cataract, the 
Riukan Fos, represented on the opposite page. It is scarcely needful to add any- 


thing to the artist’s faithful representation of this magnificent scene. From below 


Lazaretto. Christiansand. 


rises a white cloud of spray, which gives the cataract its name, the “reeking,” or 


a lake of considerable size,—the height from 


wiukan falls. The volume of water, 
which it is precipitated, over nine hundred feet, and, above all, the wonderful walls 
of rock which enclose it, make a scene which can never be forgotten, and has no 
mate in the world. Not alone is the eye impressed with the grandeur of this pic- 
ture, but the ear discerns something quite peculiar and memorable. The roar and 
tumult of so vast a cataract is not lacking, but it is not the chaotic and confused 
mass of sound usual to a mighty waterfall. The Riukan Fos strikes six distinct 


blows with its fall, followed by a seventh louder than the rest, which makes the 


4 
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THE RIUKAN FALLS. 


390 VOYAGES ANDITRAV ELS. 


=| whole mass of water rebound into the air, nearly 


half-way up the height of the cataract, as 


though the waters were filling some enormous = 


cave, and at a given moment, having oyer-filled — 


it, made their tumultuous escape. 


SSS 
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In strongest contrast to this scene of wild 


grandeur, is the tranquil beauty of the Fladal, 


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— the valley of the Flaa (see opposite page), 


vith its quiet blue waters, lying smooth and 


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Wi) unruffed in its frame of mountains. 


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To the west of the Fladal, and very near 


the sea, is the second famous Norwegian water-— 


foo 
SSS 


qo} fall, the Voring Fos. The torrent forming this 


4 fall flows from the melting snows of the neigh- 


boring mountains, and traverses a moor through — 


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| which it has cut a gully some two hundred — 


| fect deep, then, coming to a rocky wall, in 


which it either finds or makes a perpendicular 


fissure, pitches down in a foaming mass, into a 


narrow gorge of fearful depth. Looking over 


from a ledge of rock near the top, the effect 


s almost terrific; far below, a thousand feet 


/ or more, lies the milky pool, into which the 


torrent thunders with crashing violence. There 


| is no beauty nor grace about it, as there is to 
nearly all the very high waterfalls of the world; 


it is but a great mass of water driving down- 


wards, an amazing example of the power of 


| gravitation. 


Below the fall, a very remarkable gorge — 


leads out imto the Heimdal (see page 353). 


This cutting must be two miles in length; its — 


depth is above a thousand feet, and it is only 


four or five yards wide. 
A few miles further west we reach the 
Naero Fiord (page 352), well named, for “nar- — 


row” indeed it is. It is an irregular sea-filled 


ae 


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a height of 


gorge, between perpendicular rocks, rising to 


five thousand feet. Far above extend mountain pasture-lands, and there 


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852 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


are chalets perched here and there, like those of the Alps. In winter it is said that 


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Ny 


from their remote homes. Nothing can be more picturesque than the sight, on a — 


quiet Sunday, of a procession of boats creeping slowly and silently churchward, the 
white caps and red dresses of the women contrasting with the dark blue water of ‘ 
the fiord and the sombre green of the surrounding hills. 

Grandest of all the Norwegian scenery, however, is the Romsdal (see page 355), 


a valley extending far inland, from its port and fiord of Veblungsnaeset, and combin- 


“IVGOWIFH AHL 


354. VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


ing in itself more of the elements of beauty and of savage grandeur than any valley 
in Europe, not excepting the most famous among the Alps. It is distinguished bys 
the abundance and variety of its cascades, the richness of its carpet of green turf, * 
the transparent color of the stream which traverses it, and lastly, by the bold out- 


line of its mountains. Eyery kind of waterfall is here, from the rapids and roaring — 


\ ‘h 
WO 


The Church at Bakke. 


leaps of the Rauma, which runs through the bottom of the valley, to the various 
side streams which fall into it from over its rocky walls, with every variety of cas- 
cade that even Switzerland could offer. 7 | 

On the left of the valley the Romsdal Horn, a peak of extraordinary steep- 
ness, springs to the height of four thousand feet, like a huge shattered steeple, with 
other ragged cones surrounding it. Opposite, a mighty wall of rock rises directly 


telat 
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THE ROMSDAL. 


356 ) VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


from the road, varying from one to two thousand feet in height. In some parts of 


this wall great scars are visible, where huge masses have scaled off and thundered 


down; these fragments may be seen below cumbering the river-bed, and forcing its 


waters to roar and foam through the narrow channels left between them. The course 


of the road, also, has in many places been turned to wind around these huge frag- 


ments, and in some places the blocks themselves have been blasted, and the road 
fairly cut through them. ‘Above these scars an overhanging cornice may usually be 
seen, the upper surface from which the fragment was detached. The heap of mas- 


sive ruins below, and the scar above, with its overhanging cornice, have a tendency 


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Veblungs naeset. 


to prevent the observant traveller from seating himself anywhere along beneath this 
wall, lest another crash should occur at a moment unfortunate for himself. 

To enumerate the waterfalls of the Romsdal would be quite impossible. The 
most abundant and characteristic are those which dash down over the mountain wall 


we have just described. Of these the Monge Fos is the most beautiful. Looking 


up from the valley to the top of the rocky wall, the torrent is seen pouring appar- 


ently out of the sky. It curves smoothly over the topmost edge, as blue as the 
heaven above it, lustrous with the light which shines clear through the translucent 
current, then is suddenly lost, having made a plunge of a hundred feet or so into 
a great basin which it has hollowed out for itself; shattered to fragments, it reap- 


pears, and, striking the rock once more, spreads out into a white fleece, rushing down 


Pi 


———— le oo 


TJ 


= 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 357 


over a long rugged slope. At every resisting ledge, clouds of spray and mist are 
flung out, having each its exquisite rainbow. Further down, a great ledge bars its 
path, and it flings itself up into the air, falling back a mere water-dust, down a 
distance of four or five hundred feet more, where it showers upon a rocky slope, 
collects into countless little rills, disappears again, and finally rushes under the road 
and joins the main river. 

There is much legendary interest attached to the Romsdal. A certain range of 


fantastic, crenellated rocky peaks, seen from Veblungsnaeset, the harbor at the mouth 


The Fiord of Framnaes. 


of the fiord (see page 356), are said to be sorcerers, who, seeking to prevent St. 
Olaf from penetrating into this valley, in order to introduce Christianity into it, were 
changed into stone by the devout monarch. 

All this region was once a sort of Odinic Olympus; here was the abode of the 
Scandinavian divinities, and long after the rest of the country had submitted to the 
new faith, this valley held out stoutly for the religion of its forefathers. 

The whole western coast of Norway, in fact, has its poetic associations ; many 
points have been sung in imperishable verse by Tegner, the modern bard of Sweden. 


We are in the country of Frithiof and Ingeborg, whose story has inspired the poet 


q 


358 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


with some of his finest verses. The history of these faithful lovers recalls our Eng 
lish romance of Paul and Virginia ; it was amid these savage peaks that Frithic 
sought the young eaglets that he brought to his sweetheart ; across these wild to 
rents he bore her in his arms ; in these forests he hunted the bear which decimai a 
the flock of his beloved one. Here in the Fiord of Framnaes (see preceding I 
lay the little vessel which was to bear the lover from the other side of the ‘¢ 
the temple of Balder, where the young girl had been immured by her father. 

With these poetic souvenirs we take our leave of the wild and beautiful — 
way, whose power of fascination reaches across sea and land, bringing the yo 
of its loveliness not alone from England, or from New York, but from the fi rn 


Pacific coast of the American continent. 


ot 
Tees Ney Se 
ZEA TLAN Mt ble. 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 359 


DENMARK. 


—o$tjo0— 


FROM Norway to Denmark is but an easy 
flight for the imagination, although it be many weary 
leagues of stormy sea to the good ship ploughing her 
way down Skager Rack and Categat and Sund, until 
the beautiful harbor of Copenhagen is attained, and 

= the handsome city of one hundred and fifty thousand 
souls, the metropolis of the future Scandinavian empire, lies before us. 

In all quarters of the city the houses are admirable. Some are Gothic, many 
are modern; they are built of Danish brick, or of stone brought from Germany. 
The Exchange, represented on page 360, is one of the most picturesque of the public 
buildings of Copenhagen. It has a curious tower covered with lead, from which 
springs a spire composed of the twisted tails of four dragons, whose heads lie on the 


tower-roof, looking out to the four points of the compass. 


360 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


Adolphus, that hero by land and sea, that enemy of the House of Austria, that ¢ 
defender of the Reformation, that statesman, that captain, that admiral, that poet in 
brick and stone. This rude soldier was like a Caliph of Bagdad in his love of : 


architecture, and in the magnificent structures that he left behind him. 


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The Exchange. Copenhagen. 


The Palace is an irregular structure of red brick, in the Gothic style, with high | 
pointed roof, and four unequal towers. It is now used as an_ historical museum, and | 
contains, hall after hall, relics of all the kings of Denmark, from Christian ITV. down to 
Frederick VII. The collection of silver cups and flagons of exquisite workmanship 
is very remarkable ; so, also, is the treasure of Venetian glass, of which eight hun- 
dred pieces were sent by one doge to Frederick ITV. The hall of the Knights i 


the third story of the palace is a magnificent apartment: it is the coronation ha i 


of the Danish kings. The throne is surrounded by three silver lions, the armorial 
bearings of Denmark, understood to represent the Great Belt, the Little Belt, and the 
Sund. 


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VIEW OF COPENHAGEN. 


362 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


From the Old Palace of the kings to the home of a king’s favorite, is a nat- 
ural transition. In the Amac Market stands the house of Divecke, a gabled Renais- 
sance building erected in 1616. Divecke was the pretty daughter of a market-woman 
from Amsterdam, Siegbrit by name. The girl won the king’s affection, which is not 
a new incident in royal story; but the peculiarity of this romance is that her mother, 
the market-woman, became the king’s councillor and chief adviser; * Siegbrit the prime 4 


minister,” the history of the time calls her. 


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The Balas of Rosenborg. 


On pages 364 and 365 are represented the portico and interior of the Frue Kirke, 
the most interesting and precious building in all Denmark, because filled with the 
inspiration and genius of her greatest son, Thorwaldsen. The original Frue Kirke 
was destroyed in the bombardment of 1807, and when rebuilt was decorated entirely 
by Thorwaldsen, who placed here some of his most valuable work. It was upon his 


return from Italy, in 1820, after an absence of twenty-three years, that this work 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 363 


was placed in his hands, and it was not completed till shortly before his death, 
which occurred in March, 1844. It is of course understood that many of the figures 
were the work of his pupils, only receiving finishing touches here and there from 


the hand of the great master. 


eeeree We ant 


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Amac Market and House of Divecke. 


The portico of the church is regarded as too small for the best effect, but in 
other respects is an admirable structure, and the pediment is a magnificent composition. 
It represents the preaching of St. John the Baptist, and consists of figures in terra 
cotta, entirely detached from the background. The height of the St. John, the central 


364. VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


figure, is nearly eight feet, the entire breadth of the pediment forty-one feet eight inches. j 
A brief sketch of the composition will aid the reader in understanding the picture. The | 
central figure is the Baptist, with a staff surmounted by a cross; on his right are a 
young man, attentively listening; an old man and his son; a mother kneeling, with her 
little child leaning against her shoulder; a Jewish doctor seated, with bent figure and 
arms folded upon his breast ; and a reclining youth, who looks up to the preacher 
with earnestness. On the left of St. John are a youth, in upright posture, drawing» 
off his cloak in preparation for baptism; a Pharisee, in disdainful attitude ; a hunter, 


laden with game and followed by his dog, stopping for a moment to listen ; two 


— 


Portico of the Frue Kirke. 


children occupied with the dog ; a mother seated, with her child standing beside her ; 
and a recumbent shepherd, who does not seem to listen. It will be readily imagined 
how impressive these great figures must be, standing out upon the portico of the 
Frue Kirke. 

Under the portico we catch a glimpse, in the illustration, of the frieze over the 
main door, which represents the entry of Christ into Jerusalem ; its height is four 
feet, its length nearly forty-four. 

Within the church are the colossal statues of the Christ and Twelve Apostles, 
and the kneeling Angel of Baptism, an exquisite figure holding a large shallow shell, 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 365 


intended to contain water. Behind and above the altar there is a frieze represent- 
ing our Lord on the road to Calvary, and on the walls of the side aisles are two 
other friezes,—the Baptism of Jesus, and the Lord’s Supper; also a bas-relief illus- 
trating Charity, and another, “The Guardian Angel.” The Christ is eleven feet and 
a half in height, and the twelve apostles vary from eight feet one inch, the tallest 
(St. John and St. Simon Zelotes), to seven feet eight inches (St. Philip). 


a 


UAHA 


ut | we 


—— 9 a 
— 
— 


Frue Kirke. Interior. 


The Christ of Thorwaldsen is as beautiful as Raphael’s or Leonardo’s. The hair 
is parted in the middle and falls over the shoulders, and the features are of exqui- 
site delicacy. But the shoulders are broad almost like those of a Hercules, and the 
arms, stretched out as if inviting the weary and heavy-laden, are strong and mas- 


sive as those of an athlete. 


366 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


To each of the apostles the sculptor has given a distinct individuality. ‘St. E 
expresses faith; St. Paul, the power of the gospel; there is more of gentlene 
love in the features of St. John; an austere resignation is stamped upon the | 
tenance of St. Simon. “ Nevertheless,” says Plon, “in attitude and disposition 
drapery, in the severity as well as beauty of the types, the apostles are less I lik 


saints and martyrs than philosophers and sages.’ 


Opeprepes Sta CIDeF 
Pig Hal rarege 


capital of the kingdom. It had once twenty-seven churches, and has now bat ‘one 
the Cathedral. It was founded in 980 by Harold Blue-Tooth, and we may well, 
it the Westminster Abbey, or the St. Denis, of Denmark. All the early kings are 


SAOSESMOlLeaHadAuH HO AOVWIVd 


2 Se Ss GE — re 


pce Wepre | ee gg 
EN ant Ck EL era Ae Ws 
SUE. BI SOR NZSINSEIRSEINCSINS ED SS Hs: == 
zr oe I oN a ee 
SS HED! YES = I) 
—— salen | x Be) Sw = 
fl ——= = H i : = == = = 


368 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


Pd 


kingdoms under the sceptre which she wielded in the name of her grandson. Herm 
also, was interred in a separate chapel the great hero of the Oldenburg dynasty, 
Christian IV. 

The apse is believed to have been half of the original circular church, and, as 
such, is the most interesting point of the whole building. Seen from a distance, the 
towers are very impressive, and the whole mass stands out against the sky, a fitting 
representation of the medizeval period to which it belongs. 

T'wenty miles north of Copenhagen is Fredericksborg, the great palace, the Ver- 
sailles, one may say, of the Danish kings. Like a wounded hero of the north it 
still stands, though ravaged by fire about the year 1860. We present two illustra- 
tions of Fredericksborg, that on page 367, the castle as seen from the courtyard, and 


the steel engraving, a view from across the lake. 


Chateau of Egeskow. Chateau of Lovenborg. 


This also is the work of Christian TV., and was built on three little islands in 
a lake connected by bridges, and covered to the water’s edge, so that the palace 
seems to rise from the water like a chateau of fairy-land. It is a colossal edifice, 
and of most capricious variety in respect to architecture. Its walls are in part brick, 
in part stone ; its fagades and towers, here Greek, there Gothic; while the Scandi- 
navian imagination glitters about every portion of the vast structure, from statues — 
and niches, arched passage-ways and pillars of black Norway marble, and_bas-reliefs, 
to the general effect of mingled color, dark and brilliant, which is reflected beneath 
the blue sky in the green waters of the lake. 

The great chapel is all emblazoned with the shields of the knights of the Order 
of the Elephant. Its pulpit and altar are of ebony and silver, — six hundred pounds 
of the precious metal is used in it, they say,—but the exquisite workmanship dis- 
played in the materials gives them a yalue far exceeding their brute worth. 


The gardens are laid out in the French style, and are very extensive ; but the , 


be ee 
te ak o 


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nT ME, RA Oe Sa Poe Pe } nay 
eh he Y te Cy Go oa WY oA OM L = a . ‘ ‘Ts @* oa 


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DRAWN BY CAPTY BATTY 


“. 


br 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 369 


‘royal forest, with its magnificent avenues of beech-trees, may rival the finest in all 


Europe. 
This castle was the favorite home of Christian ITV. Fétes and banquets of all 
kinds, by day and night, succeeded each other in the spacious halls and superb pleas- 


ure-grounds, and were graced by the beauty and gentleness of Christine Munch, whom 


the king, by a morganatic marriage, made his wife. 


To all the higher classes there is, in Denmark, a great charm in country life. 
It is a land of chateaux, like those represented on this and the preceding page, 
some of which are of great beauty. Here they impress you by their grandeur, there 


you are charmed by their dainty elegance. Some are surrounded by crenellated walls, 


flanked with solid towers, and have all the appurtenances of the medizval stronghold ; 


Chateau of Glorup. 


others are all Gothic ornamentation, with round and pointed arches, with galleries and 
baleonies, where the Arab fancy blends with Scandinavian caprice. Some chateaux 
are feudal citadels with menacing donjons; others are hunting-lodges, in the heart of 
the deep woods; others are like a swan’s nest among the reeds; others are like Ve- 
hetian palaces, which mirror their sculptured bridges in the deep-green water of the 


lagoons. In a few the most exquisite taste, without relinquishing its heritage of the 


past, has united it to the present by the miracles of modern comfort and the magic 


of modern art. 


The Chateau of Glorup, represented above, is one of the largest and most beau- 


tiful in the country. It stands in a valley amid superb groves of forest-trees. To 


look at its exterior, you would call it some princely abbey of the middle ages ; 
within, it is a vast Trianon, with all the charming variety and caprice which the 


Scandinavian imagination can suggest. The building is quadrangular, so that whep 


370 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


one has entered through the grand gateway, with its lattice-work of gilded iron and _ 
its great oaken doors, he finds himself in a courtyard, on all four sides of which 
the stately walls rise to the height of their five stories, while overhead float the two 
flags, —that of the family, with bars of yellow, black, red, and blue, and that of Den- 
mark, a white cross upon a red background. 

The establishment is kept up in a manner worthy of the noble old building. 
The stables are filled with blood-horses — English, Danish, and Norwegian. Carriages 
and sledges are in great variety, the latter those charming northern equipages that 
fly by day through a whirlwind of light snow, and by night, with their high-hung 
lanterns, light up the wintry landscape, and devour the road to the low music of 


the Scandinavian sleigh-bells. The estate is under admirable culture. Vast grain-fields, — 


Chateau of Rygaard. 


and pasture grounds where cattle feed by the hundred, recall England. It is an 
England of the north, without English manufactures, and with forests such as are 
now unknown in the island kingdom. 

These chateaux of counts and barons, or of great untitled land-owners, have a 
social and political signification. Sometimes many estates belong to one family, and 
form a little sovereignty almost like a kingdom. The whole country of Denmark is 
divided into eighteen counties, fourteen baronies, and forty-seven fiefs. These estates 
are inalienable, indivisible, descending absolutely by the law of primogeniture. It is 
a system deeply rooted, logical, strong in prestige, and extremely interesting to the 
student of political economy. Whether it can endure forever must be doubted ; 


whether anything better will succeed it, is a point upon which opinions vary, 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 371 


iW! 


WO state, Poland retains a character, perhaps, more individ- 


ual and peculiar than any other country in Europe, and is 
no more likely to be assimilated and lost in the great nation of Russia, than are 
the Jews or the Gypsies in the various countries where for the moment they make 
their home. 

Of the great kingdom which was ruled for nearly two centuries by the illustrious 
House of Jagellon, only that portion which fell to Russia at the time of the partition 
is now called by the name of Poland: this portion, however, contains the capital, 
and numbers in its five million inhabitants all the old, heroic names which have 
given the unhappy little country a world-wide fame. Warsaw is a city nearly four- 


teen miles in circumference, haying a population of about a hundred and fifty thou- 


BY VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


sand persons. It has one long, broad street, and many narrow ones lying at right 
angles to the main thoroughfare. The city, diversified by many gardens and orchards, 
extends partly over a plain, partly upon a plateau which rises along the shore of 
the Vistula, and, thanks to the wide plains and the river, enjoys fresh air and a 
healthful climate. 

Warsaw, notwithstanding its celebrity, is far from meeting our ideas of the splen- 


dor suited for a capital. At every step one sees remnants of barbarism; perhaps 


lik 
rs 


ie 


SS 


= 


Church of the Holy Cross. Warsaw. 


the most painful contrast which strikes the eye is that existing between the splen- 
did churches and the poor wooden houses in which a majority of the inhabitants 
reside. From the earliest times, an ostentatious extravagance in the building of 
churches has been one of the weak points of the Polish magnates. 

We may take for an example the Church of the Holy Cross (see above). It 
serves as the family tomb of the Czartoryskis, who are buried under the nave. The 
magnificence of this building is extreme: three altars, laden with gold, stand within 


it ; they are consecrated specially to requiem masses, now no longer said. All the 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. _ 303 


mterior of the church is lined with marble, white and black, brought from distant 
‘quarries at enormous expense of money and labor. All the decorations were exe- 
cuted in foreign lands: the high altar at Hlbing, the baptismal fonts in Italy. The 
paintings are due to German, French, and Venetian masters, for Poland herself has 
produced no painter worthy of the name. 

Warsaw contains many promenades and places of public out-of-door resort. Its 


finest avenue is the Belvedere, bordered for more than a mile by a triple row of 


Chateau of Lazienski. 


chestnut-trees. It leads from the city to the Chateau of Lazienski, here represented, 
and is thronged during the fine weather by the inhabitants. 

This palace served as the residence of the emperor Nicholas [., whenever he 
came to Warsaw. Originally, the estate was but a hunting-park, cut by watercourses, 
surrounded by swamps and quite buried in mud. Later, baths were constructed, 
laznia, reached by a rude plank road; hence its name, palatz lazienok. Jobn III. 
presented it to Stanislas Lubomirski, and this noble neglected it utterly. Stanislas 


Augustus bought it back, erected a summer chateau, and laid out ornamental grounds 


3T4 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


. ‘> 


of vast extent, decorating them with fountains and groups of statuary in the fash- 
ion of that day. C4 
The place as it now exists is as beautiful as fairy-land. The chateau stands 


. 


between two lakes; to one of its wings a church has been added, built in 1846, 
and dedicated to Alexander Newski. All along the side of the chateau a marble 


staircase descends into the lake. The first story of the building consists entirely of 


a : “ ——— = =e 


Park of Lazienski. 


superb reception rooms, of which the finest is a long salon, with windows opening 
each side upon the water. It contains also a splendid picture gallery, and a white 
marble Venus of great beauty. The theatre of the chateau is built upon an island 
in the lake, in front of the main structure, and the stage is separated by a canal 
from the great audience room, which will accommodate fifteen hundred persons. The 
park is traversed by broad avenues of white poplars, and filled with pretty summer 


houses. 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 375 


i" BERLIN may appropriately be called a city of palaces, for there 
is scarcely a street in all the five towns and as many suburbs that 
go to make up the great city, that does not boast of some splendid 
public building, or some palace either of the royal family or of the higher 
nobility. Other European capitals have their one or two handsome quarters, but the 
fine houses of Berlin are on every hand. Domes, colonnades, and all the elegances 
of Greek architecture meet the eye wherever we turn, and from the width of the 
streets, and the agreeable variety of avenues of trees and flower-gardens interven- 
ing, each building is seen to the best advantage. 


Still it cannot be denied that Berlin is the most prosaic of all the great capitals 


376 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


of Europe. There is a monotony about some of the finest streets of this city, arial 
ing from their great length and breadth, and from the uniformity and similarity of : 
the buildings, that is apt to make the stranger sigh for alleys less straight and 
splendid, the narrow, irregular lanes, and the quaint Gothic or medizval buildings 
of many an old town in Southern Germany or by the Rhine. Still further, it must 
be owned that when we closely inspect these fine Greek fagades and Ionic columns, 
we perceive with pain that fagades, and columns too, are but brick faced with stucco, 
which here and there, even with the best of care in this damp climate, has flaked 
off at some exposed corner, and shows the vulgar material beneath. 

There is no city that breathes less the spirit of antiquity than Berlin. It looks, 
indeed, like a town of the new world rather than the old,— American rather than 
European. The great similarity in its buildmgs suggests the notion that it was called 
suddenly and at once into existence; which, indeed, is not far from the fact, Fred- 
erick the Great being the necromancer. One great ornament of Berlin must not be 
overlooked in any fair enumeration of its beauties and defects,—the abundance of its 
flowers. The balconies of houses teem with them; they stand up proudly in great 
vases, adorning the fronts of many of the buildings, and far up against the sky 
you catch a glimpse of them, decorating the garret lodging of some poor artisan or 
work-woman. 

The Emperor’s Palace is the main feature of the city, owing much of its impos- 
ing appearance to its colossal size. Its length is four hundred feet, its breadth two 
hundred and seventy-six, and its height a little over a hundred. It has four inner 
courtyards and six hundred rooms, of which those shown to the public are daily 
filled by a throng of visitors. The finest among these show apartments are the Pic- 
ture-Gallery ; the White Hall, furnished entirely in marble at an expense of six 
hundred thousand dollars; the Rittersaal, containing statues of the Hlectors; and the 
Chapel, whose dome rises above the other roofs, giving variety to the outline of the 
great mass. 

The existence of a palace on this spot dates to a grant made by the city of 
Berlin to the Elector Frederick I. This document was signed on St. John’s day, 
1442, and the Elector, at once improving the concession made him, had his castle 
finished and ready for occupancy in 1451. Of this fortress, for such it really was, 
some separate portions remain, incorporated in the present structure. In 1538 great 
alterations were made by Joachim IL., the champion of the Reformation. An archi- 
tect, Kaspar Theiss, whose name is yet renowned in Germany, tore down much of 
the early structure, and began the building of an edifice which may be properly 
called the first palace of Berlin. For fifty years this work went slowly on, under 
different architects, till the city of Berlin set fifteen masons at work upon it, and 


in 1595 it was completed. In 1604, further additions were made to the building, all 


a 


‘NITHSHa NI ADVIVd AHL 


hi 
i 


; ; - wl UL RK gt A 
Os RA UR A” a ggg NA A sa — = ; am: 
= m',” a b 


878 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


of which are yet standing. In 1694, Frederick III. appointed Andreas Schltiter court- 
builder, and when in 1701 the Elector became King of Prussia, he carried on the 
enlargement of his palace with renewed enthusiasm. finally, in the reign of Fred- 
erick William I., the work was completed, and the vast structure stood forth as now 
it stands, with but a single exception, — the new Chapel with its beautiful dome, 
added by Frederick William IV., the brother and immediate predecessor of the Hm- 
peror William. 

To Frederick William IV. are likewise due the great architectural plans in car- 


rying out which the present emperor has constructed the new building called the 


AUBIN It 
Sy 

vee 

{ 


Bird-House. Zoological Gardens. 


National Galiery, of which the grand staircase is represented on the opposite page. 
The late king had the intention of crecting on the island which lies in the heart 
of Berlin, and already is made an architectural centre by the Palace and the Mu- 
seum, a great basilica in the Byzantine style, a colonnade uniting it with the Palace 
on the south, and on the north, a building designated as a Campo Santo, or burial- 
place for the royal family. Still further it was his intention to erect near by an 
edifice in the Florentine style to contain the Royal Library, and a building in the 
Greek style for the University. A further plan, for the New Museum, was the only 


one which the designer of so many lived to see completed. 


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380 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. | 


In 1866 the present emperor, then King William I., gave orders for the erection 
of the building his brother had designed for the University, to be called the Na- 
tional Gallery, and consecrated to the exhibition of German art in all its forms. 
Ten years passed as the work went on, and on the 22d of March, 1876, the doors 
of this magnificent edifice were thrown open, and the German world was bidden to 
see that, amid all the din of arms and advancement of material interests which have 
characterized the decade just passed, the traditional love of art has burned with as 
ardent a flame as in any days of peace the nation had ever known. 

In any degree properly to describe this new building is impossible, with the space 


Z 


LAOK 


Le 


> 


Yel 


Snake-House. Zoological Gardens. 


at our command. It stands midway in the area between the river Spree and the 
New Museum, and is to be surrounded by the most tasteful grounds, with lawns, flower- 
beds, fountains, and statues. The basement of gray granite is forty feet high, and 
upon this rises a Greek temple of the purest style, of hewn red sandstone, its roof 
supported by fluted Corinthian pillars. 

A grand staircase of Carrara marble (see page 379) leads from the entrance to 
the first story of the building. The walls on both sides of the lower story are of 
variegated red Pyrenean marble, while those above are of red stucco; the floors 


from which the stairs ascend are of yellow, red, and white marble, in a_tessellated 


i 


eh 


~~ 


i 5 SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 381 


‘. 


pattern. In the distance are seen two of the black Silesian marble pillars of the lower 
hall, supporting the arched roof upon their composite capitals of gold bronze. 
Beyond and above is a very wilderness of splendid halls and cabinets, designed to 
contain the various great works of art which German genius has produced and to all 
future time shall produce, encouraged and stimulated as in no other country in the 
world. ‘he building itself, in all its parts, is a magnificent triumph of German art. 
Architecture, sculpture, and painting have vied with one another in bringing to it their 
most beautiful and precious gifts, “to prove,” says Dr. Zehlicke, with a pride not un- 


pardonable in such a case, “that the German people not merely win victory by the 


Ailul\ttieeresse 
iil} 


Grotto. Sans-Souci. 


sword, but in the arts of peace have grown to be a match for any nation in the 
world.” 

To pass from the massive grandeur of granite and marble and bronze, to the 
airy lightness that comes from the use of iron and glass, and to turn from the 
wonders of art to the curiosities of nature, let us follow the Berlinese crowd to one 
of its favorite resorts, the Zodlogical Gardens, just beyond the great park outside 
the city gates. On page 378 is represented the great aviary, where birds of every 
clime dwell in happy unconsciousness of the glass walls that shut them in from 
liberty. On page 380 is perhaps a less pleasant sight, and yet the snakes have their 
admirers, as they ought, with the wonderful metallic sheen of their lustrous skins, and 


their lithe and sinuous motions. 


382 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. - 


From Berlin to Potsdam is a distance of about twenty miles, accomplished in three | 
quarters of an hour by train, but a charming drive by the road, if one is not pressed 
for time. This road is one continuous avenue of trees, and has rather the air of a 
private approach to some stately chateau than of a public highway. ‘The country, 
watered as it is by the Havel, abounds in the finest trees and most luxuriant shrub- 
bery, and has afforded the landscape gardener points of picturesque beauty of which 
the utmost advantage has been taken. 

The town of Potsdam is somewhat like a miniature Berlin. The streets are 


broad and regular, and planted with ornamental trees, and it is rich in architectural 


Colonnade. Sans-Souci. 


decorations of the same general character as those of its more important neighbor. 
The great attraction of the town, however, is the Palace of Sans Souci, built in 174547, 
by Frederick the Great. The approach to the palace is by a broad avenue, through — 
gardens laid out in the formal French style of Louis Quatorze, with alleys, clipped 
hedges, statues, fountains, and grottos, all kept in perfect order. 

The building itself (see opposite page) stands at the top of a flight of terraces, 
so to speak; these terraces are fronted with glass, beneath which grow vines and 
olives and orange-trees, in the utmost luxuriance. The palace is quite devoid of archi- 


tectural beauty, a long, low building containing but one suite of apartments; from 


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SANS-SOUCI. 


384 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


the grotesque alto-relievos with which it is profusely ornamented, and the gold letters 
of “Sans Souci,” which it bears on its fagade, the French frippery of Frederick’s — 
taste may be clearly inferred. The front of the building is towards the east, and 
commands a view of many objects of interest. In the rear there is a semicircular 
colonnade (see page 382), extremely interesting as being the place where the great- 
est monarch of his day was wont to pace to and fro for hours in the sunshine, 


when the failing health of his declining years incapacitated him for greater exertion. 


HO 


il 


I ua 
| | | 


= Ary ||| | 
———————— H! 

== ath 

= “al 


Franciscan Cloister. Dantzic. 


The apartments of Sans Souci are by no means elegant ; the pictures are rather 
ordinary, and the furniture poor. In the small library, consisting solely of French 
books, is still seen, just as the monarch left it, his writing-table and inkstand, and 
in the adjoining apartment the visitor is shown the spot where the arm-chair stood 
in which he died. In short, the memory of Frederick the Great lingers about and 
pervades his favorite home, as though it were but yesterday that he paced the ter- 
race, as Dr. Zimmermann has described him, “his head covered with his well-worn 
plumed hat, his figure wrapped in a cloak of sky-blue satin, much besprinkled with 


brown Spanish snuff, and his legs incased in a pair of huge jack-boots.” 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 385 


_ Verily it is with pleasure that we turn from the elegant modern aspect of Berlin 
and its suburbs to a city of the past, Dantzic, once a free city on Polish territory, 
at the time when the kingdom of Po- 
Jand extended from Hungary on the south, 
all the way to the Baltic shores. Not 
to say that Dantzic is solely a city of 
the past, for, with its seventy thousand 
inhabitants, and its enormous trade in grain 
and in timber, it is a commercial power of 
importance of the present day. But it has 
still, in spite of its modern improvements, 
many relics of the earlier time, in the form 


of fine specimens of antique architecture, 


which the town takes pride in preserving 


and restoring when they fall into decay. 


The origin of the old city is veiled 


in the poetic darkness of tradition. The 


Hdda narrates how, before the time of 


Christ, wandering colonies from the shores 


of the Black Sea made their way as far 
north as the amber-land, for so it was East Corridor. 

then known, from its earliest export, found- 

ing there a new Asgaard, which had the name of Gidania, called, in Polish, Gdansk, 
—hence, later, Danske, and Dantzic. And so in 997, when the Archbishop Adalbert 
of Prague visited the lower Vistula, on a missionary tour, he found near the mouth 
of the river this city Gidania, inhabited by a people of Germanic race, the city 
being regarded as the capital of East Pomerania, and, in political status, under the 
protection of the Dukes of Poland. Here the gospel was readily received, and even 
at that early day the German element asserted its intellectual supremacy over the 
Slavyie population around it. 

The town was long an apple of discord among the various powers of the north, 
—the Danes, the Swedes, and the Pomeranians; but however often changing its 
owner, and however many Slavic elements were contained in it, it still was and 
remained a German city. In 1310 it fell into the power of the Order of. Teutonic 
Knights, and became an important outpost of that organization against the heathen ; 
it developed suddenly its great resources, and from that time has been called the 
“Granary of the North.” To the hundred and forty-four years of rule of the Teu- 
tonic Knights, Dantzic owes, also, its characteristic beauty. Almost all the churches, 


386 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


eates, and towers, whose pure Gothic architecture is the delight and the imitation of 
the best architects of to-day, are memorials of the Teutonic Order. 

But the tyranny of the Grand-Master was heavy, and the interests of trade 
pointed towards Polish connections, and the people of Dantzic drove out the Knights, 
and placed themselves, in 1454, under the 
rule of Casimir [V., king of Poland, with 
the condition of preserving their indepen- 
dence and the truly German character of 
their city. 

Dantzic now became what was called a 
“Free City,” having its own laws, coining its 
if own money,— stamped, it is true, with the 
it head of the Polish king,— and being rep- 


resented in Warsaw in the Assembly, and 


at the election of the kings. At times the 


city was mutinous, and would not agree in 


the election of some of the kings; but, on 


| the whole, their relations with Poland were 


harmonious enough for them to feel bitterly, 


German by race though they were, the 


change when, in 1793, they became, on the 


z = = dismemberment of Poland, a part of the Ger- 

Aap ue nen man kingdom of Prussia. The new affilia- 

tions were, however, so really the natural 

and true ones, that, though the immediate subjects of the change took it ill, a gen- 

eration later reconciled themselves to it completely, and the city of Dantzic is now 
one of the most loyal and enthusiastic in the new empire. 

The Franciscan Cloister, represented on pages 384-388, is one of the most ancient 
foundations in Dantzic. It had fallen so much into decay, having been a hospital in 
war times, and having been much injured by a great fire in 1857, that, ten years 
since, the stranger, exploring this old North German city, would scarcely have 
deemed it worthy of his notice. As early, however, as 1845, a German sculptor, 
Freitag, called to Dantzic as professor in a government school of art, discovered the 
ancient glories of the interior concealed under masses of ruins, and, encouraged by 
the late king, Frederick William IV., whose devotion to art is well known, made 
it his business to bring the people of the city to a knowledge of their duty in 
restoring a treasure so valuable to art. 

Several wealthy citizens interested themselves in this patriotic work, and it was 


commenced in 1867, in such good earnest, that the year 1871 brought it to com- 


lif 
ditt 


Wy 


i 


JRAWN BY CAPTY BATTY ENGRAVED BY.T.C-VARRALL. 


TIES ILTIBIETIAALMIR Gib. 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 387 


pletion. Without, the buildings appear very nearly the same as in the days of 
the Teutonic Knights who witnessed their first establishment early in the fifteenth 
century, and the installation there of the 
barefooted friars of the Franciscan Order. 
Within, they are in use to accommodate 
art-schools, galleries of painting and_ sculp- 
ture, and a public concert hall. 

In one respect, the exterior view is 
different now from what it was in the days 
of the Franciscan friars. No high walls 
and thick-growing hedges cut off the view 
into the courts and halls of the cloister. 


A handsome fence with plinths of masonry 


and cast-iron railings, imitating the old iron- 


work of the fifteenth century, opens its gates 


into trimly laid-out gardens, all lying clearly 
in view, and tempting the visitor to enter. 
The buildings lie adjacent to the fine old 
Trinitatis-Kirche, and form almost a perfect 


rectangle ; only the southeast corner, which 


contains the great chapter-house, extends for- Refectory. West Section. 

ward into the street, and the uniformity of 

its long south front, which looks upon the garden, is broken by a porch-house for 
the stairs. 

Gothic arched windows in the lower story; steep roofs with projecting dormer 
windows ; gables, not so beautiful, it is true, as the famous gables of the adjacent 
church, yet not out of keeping with them, are the outward characteristics of the 
entire structure. Stone steps,. with iron railings resting on heavy granite” balls, lead 
up to the main entrance, and over it is inscribed in Old German gilt letters: “City 
Museum, founded by Gottfried Klose and heirs, in the year 1871.” 

The great eastern corridor (page 385) is extremely imposing, with its pointed 
arched windows, once in part walled up but now suitably glazed in the old-fash- 
ioned style, through which a flood of light is poured upon the beautiful ceiling, 
bringing out its ornamentation in clear relief. Something of the Italian style is visi- 
ble in these corridors, due, perhaps, to Italian monks, who may have had a share 
im their decoration. Traces. of the use of color were plainly discernible in the walls 
and ceilings; and they have been restored in accordance with this fact, the most 
brilliant coloring being reserved for the little Refectory. 

The great Refectory (pages 386, 387) extends parallel with the southern corridor, 


388 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


bem 


opening into it by an oaken door with carved Jeaf-ornamentation, imitated from the ; 


beautiful old gate leading from the cloister into the adjacent church, and its lock is an 


elegant piece of old Dantzic iron-work. The - 


vaulted roof of this refectory is in the best 
style of Gothic art, and so is the triple 
Gothic arch which divides the hall into a 


larger and smaller section. 


In the inner courtyard (here represented) 
a fountain sends up its sparkling jet, sur- 


rounded by flower-beds. In the northeast cor- 


ner of this courtyard, a tower with antique 


winding stairs, and a balcony with a stone 


balustrade, built against the church, unite the 


dwelling-house and studio of the painter 


Sy, the curator of the Museum, with the main 


building. 


Another fine old structure is the Hohe 


Thor (see below), the city gate, opening 


into the fortress. It is of sandstone, built 


= ® in 1588 and restored in 1861, as the in- 
Northeast Corner of Inner Courtyard. scription tells. 


Upon its richly ornamented 
front are three great armorial designs: that of Poland in the centre, those of Dant- 


zic and West Prussia at the right and _ left. : : = 


Passing under the lofty archway, we cross a little 


bridge over the moat, and so perceive ourselves 


to be in a stronghold, a wall on each side and 


a castle before us. The old maritime city is a 


fortress of the first rank; it has stood many a 


siege, but none more severe than those in the time 
of the Napoleonic wars. 

Another point of interest is the Town House 
(see page 390), with its fine tower like that of a 
church; and the Artushof, or Young Men’s Hall, 
where the young patricians of Dantzic held many 
a merry revel in the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- : 


turies. In front of the Artushof sparkles and 


laughs the fountain as it did then, but there is = 
now a Neptune with his trident, drawn by his pees Ads kph 


sea-horses, which is of much later date than the building of which it is an ornament, 


. . 


oe 


TTT | 


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pi 


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War 


UN 


( 


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i he mf iy 


1) 


TOWN HALL. BRESLAU, 


390 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


Lamp-posts, too, the observer will detect, a contribution of the nineteenth century, far . 


eS from unwelcome in the long, dark nights of a 


northern winter. 


. 


Lastly, we observe the old Arsenal (see below), 


a peaceful-looking building, notwithstanding the 


statue of Minerva, and the numberless warlike em- 


blems that adorn its fagade. This building dates 


from the beginning of the seventeenth century, and, 


to the brickwork of the main structure, adds sand- 


stone for the setting of windows and doors, and 


for the abundant decoration of the entire front. 


Over its main entrance are the armorial bearings 
of the city : two white crosses, beneath a golden 
crown upon a red field, supported by two lions. 


Another important town in the eastern part 


== of the German empire is Breslau, the capital of 
Town Fiall, Dantzic. Silesia, and the second city in Prussia in point of 
population, haying 150,000 inhabitants. It is built on both banks of the Oder, which 


is crossed by an iron bridge. The old fortifications of the town, partially destroyed 


<t 2 aa SSS SSS SS H i vii 


i 


The Arsenal. Dantzic. 


by the French in 1807, have since been completely levelled and converted into fine 


boulevards. There are several admirable old Gothic churches, but the most beauti- 


TOWN HALL, BRIEG. 


- 


392 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


ful specimen of medizval architecture is the Town House (page 389), founded by 
John of Bohemia, the blind king who fought and fell at Agincourt; and showing, 
now stands, for the most part the Gothic of the fifteenth century. 

Quaint and primitive in form at its origin, it slowly grew, the work of succes- 
sive generations, till it is an odd mosaic of various styles, all beautiful and all har- 
monious, however, as was the work of those ages. It stands in the principal square, _ 
or market-place, and booths for the sale of all manner of commodities are constantly 


built up around it, like fungi at the root of some noble tree. Various quaint old — 


them with its clinging stems and clustering leaves. 


Another Town Hall, that in Brieg (see page 391), is a real marvel of Gothic 


cree 


| Rm ell m 
= : 1h Bi fama! MALTON: 


.GIRAROET.OEL 


Old Bridge. Dresden. 


architecture, and the little town, otherwise most uninteresting, well repays a visit, by 
the sight of this picturesque old structure. 
From Breslau across the Riesengebirge, the Giant Mountains, that are the boundary — 


of Silesia, we make our way to Dresden. It is some hundred and fifty miles more 


Leaving | 


. 


with crosses and life-size figures representing the crucifixion (page 393). 


the mountains behind us we rapidly traverse the fertile Saxon country, and soon see, | 
» 


6 


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FOREST ROAD IN THE GIANT MOUNTAINS, 


394 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


rising in the level distance, the towers and roofs which naioate Dresden, “ the Flor 
ence of the North.” 

In this city there is so much to see that the traveller will gladly linger there 
for weeks. With the space at our command we can but give the reader a couple | 
of pages, and with the Old Bridge and the Zwinger we believe that we present the — 
two most characteristic illustrations of the Saxon city: the one, representing, as it : 
does, the very earliest period; the other, a specimen of that eighteenth-century mag- 4 
nificence borrowed from France, and nowhere more the fashion than in the capital of ¢ 


Saxony. 


And first, the Old Bridge, the finest stone bridge in Europe, perhaps. It is like 


i ij sa | ae . 
at Min! 


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Zwinger. Dresden. 


a wide, paved street, with a raised sidewalk and an open stone railing on both sides. 
When the river is low, as in the picture, the great bases of the piers are in sight 
as one leans over the bridge and looks down. They broaden like a flight of steps, — 
till it seems as if they must meet and make a solid floor resting on the river's 
bed. 7 

Here was this bridge, built early in the fourteenth century, before any of the 
buildings which now look down upon it were in existence, for the ground all about 
it was completely cleared by the great fire in 1490, after which was erected the ‘ ; 
Cathedral in the Italian style, close at the end of the bridge, and the sombre old 
palace, just back of the Cathedral. 


Sixteen piers and as many arches support the bridge, and the piers extend out | 


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SCHWERIN. 


GRAND-DUCAL CASTLE. 


396 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


wide on each side into the river, giving semicircular Spaces that suggest bow- 
windows. A low bench of stone along the parapet makes a very attractive rest- 
ing-place for the tired pedestrian : outside, the small-leaved German ivy clings to the 
crevices, and makes many a luxuriant patch of green and dainty festoon. Lower down 
and safe out of reach, the doves perch, and plume themselves and walk with mincing 
red feet along the ledges. 

The Zwinger (page 394) was an extravaganza devised by Augustus the Strong, 
that unfortunate Elector whom Frederick the Great brought to such woe and humili- 


ation. In his prosperous days he did, like Kubla Khan, 
‘‘A stately pleasure-house decree,” 


but got no further with it than this Zwinger, which is really nothing more than 
the fore-court and entrance to the proposed palace. In the centre stands a bronze 
statue of Frederick Augustus the Just, who was much more worthy to be remem- 
bered than the real designer of the edifice. Within, the Zwinger contains Museums 
of Antiquities and of Natural History, and so is put to better use, perhaps, than if 
the great palace had risen up behind it. 

The most interesting of all the excursions around Dresden is that into Saxon 
Switzerland, as it is ambitiously called, a region beginning about eight miles up the 
river and extending over the Bohemian frontier. The geologic formation of this 
region is such that it abounds in deep and lovely glens, one of which is represented 
in the steel engraving facing page 386. A beautiful stream dashes down this glen, 
leaving scarcely room for a footpath at the water’s edge. Following up the stream, 
we reach the little mill, sunk deep in the gorge, and wedged in, so to speak, between 
perpendicular rocks. Through the miller’s house runs the path, thence up a flight 
of some hundred and eighty steps, and out along on the summit of the cliff. 

Before leaving that portion of the German empire which lies east of the Elbe, 
we must glance at Schwerin, the capital of Mecklenburg, which contains in its Grand- 
Ducal Palace (see preceding page) one of the most beautiful and imposing structures 
of the modern German school of architecture. There, upon an island, at the point of 
contact of two lakes, stands the many-towered, complex structure, aspiring towards 
heaven, in countless gables and little spires and turrets, crowned by the gilded cupola 
whose summit is two hundred feet from the ground. Its fagade is adorned with 
numerous statues and inscriptions, chief among them the colossal equestrian statue of 
the Slavic prince, Niklot. 

The palace is so admirably brought before the eye, in the illustration, that in 
the room of further description we will Say a word of its history; for, all modern 
as it stands before us, in its first beginnings the Grand-Ducal Palace is more than 


a thousand years old. And the place where it stands is° memorable in the history 


al 


LP a iy ey ove 7 


ENGRAVED BY ROB? WALLIS 


BY CAPTIBATTY 


SW 


WE 


AMOS Wik Glial . 


VP, 1 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 397 


of the north, and of the civilization of all Germany, since here the strife raged hot- 


test between the old heathen Wendish races and the German Saxons ; here, finally, 


the Teutonic sword and the cross of the true faith were victorious over the heathen 
Slaves, and a state was founded destined to endure, vital with German civilization. 
It is a Wendish name that is borne by both castle and state. Zuerin, or Schwe- 


rm, still means, in the Slavic speech, a wild region, one filled with game. Here 


Ploen. 


stood the ancient Slavic stronghold, in which Niklot, the last prince of the Obotrites, 
had his abode. Against him came out Henry the Lion ; and, in terror of the event, 


Niklot set fire to all his fortresses, Schwerin included. Then, with a few faithful 


398 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


, f 
followers, he faced the enemy, and met an heroic death in the field. With him ended 


the Wendish rule, and Schwerin became a German state.’ This happened in 1160, - 

Over the old castle, which was then but a simple tower, fire and destrusHan 
have many times passed. The desire to give it some architectural beauty, and to 
unite the various scattered buildings which by degrees had grown up about it into 
a stately whole, seems to have first been felt by Duke Adolf Frederick in the first 
half of the seventeenth century. A Dutch architect furnished a plan, of which but 
a small part was carried out; and after this the design of rebuilding the old castle 
was abandoned, when Duke Frederick, who ruled over Schwerin from 1756 to 1785, 
erected the Palace of Ludwigsburg, and established his residence there. So the Castle 
of Schwerin remained in a state of extreme dilapidation, though containing the library, 
museum, and archives of the dukedom, till, in 1844, the present grand-duke, appre- 
ciating the picturesque beauty and historic associations of the old place, commenced 
the magnificent structure which in 1857 reached its completion. 

The two pictures on the preceding page represent the duchy of Holstein, annexed 
to Germany after the war of 1862. Kiel, with its cathedral, its quays, its fine build- 
ings, and, beyond the river, its farms and meadows and hills, is the limit of the German 
world ; beyond lies Scandinavia. 

The city is charmingly situated on the bay, which is like a lake. It has a superb 
harbor, spacious enough to accommodate the fleets of two countries, as in the time 
of the Crimean War, with abundant depth of water, and well sheltered from the 
Baltic winds. Kiel is really the metropolis of the two duchies, — Schleswig and 
Holstein, 


Not far from Kiel is the Castle of Ploen, formerly a ducal residence. It is 


and gains every year in importance. 


mirrored in the waters of the Lake of Ploen, and has pleasure-grounds very beau- 
tifully laid out. Nothing in North Germany is finer than the lime-tree avenue which 
leads up to the castle, and in the grounds are four renowned old trees over a hun- 
dred feet high. | 

Lastly, Hamburg, the great commercial metropolis of the Empire, with a popu- 
lation in 1860 of 230,000, of whom about ten thousand are Jews. This part of the 
population were formerly under various civil and other disabilities, and gathered in 
their own quarter (see page 399); but in 1849 they were emancipated by legal act, 
and at the present time residences of wealthy Jews abound in the most fashionable 
quarter of the town. 

The city stands on the eastern bank of the Elbe, and its broad expanse oppo- 
site the city forms the harbor, where vessels can load and unload in perfect security. 
In the steel engraving facing page 396, is represented the Port, so called, —an inner 
basin seldom used for vessels of large tonnage except when undergoing repairs. 


Early in the morning the Port presents a lively scene, filled with boats bringing 


<a 


Dae ‘pa “ - 
ae - 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 399 


Hamburg is like a Dutch town in being intersected by many canals (see next 
page), crossed at intervals by small = . 


bridges, and bordered by quaint 


old houses of the most fantastic 


architecture, with projecting win- 


dows and steep gable roofs, a real 


study for a painter. 


Ha 


Hamburg, both old and new, but (RX Omi, || ES 


ail 


the most important of these is the 


Wy 
4 : AN | 


great St. Michael’s (see engraving 


facing page 400) near the Altona 
Gate. It is the largest and _ finest - /f\ 
of all the old buildings in the city, i 


haying a tower four hundred and I : 
fifty-six feet in height, and being S 
of size to accommodate six thou- 
sand people. From the summit of 


the tower, reached by an ascent 


of nearly six hundred stairs, the 


city is seen lying beneath like a 


map, and the whole country stretched |= 


out in panoramic beauty as far as = 
Lubee and Lunenburg. The ball 


of this tower is surrounded with i 
Hu 


> ° SSS —————— 
a seat, and has eight small, round (== —=——— : 


== — 


WRAL GARNESER 


windows in it. The interior of the JERE ONE. te Cheselibaer 


church is very splendid, having a remarkable altar-piece, from the pencil of Tisch- 
bein, and an organ of great size and sweetness of tone. 

In the new quarters of Hamburg the houses are like palaces ; all is neat, orderly, 
Salubrious, full of light and air, and resembles Paris or London. “Leaving the new 
quarter,” says Théophile Gautier, “I penetrated by degrees into the chaos of the old 
streets, and soon I had before my eyes a characteristic and picturesque Hamburg, a 
genuine old city with a medieval stamp that would rejoice the heart of an antiquary. 
) “Houses, with denticulated gables, or gables curved in volutes, throw out suc- 
Cessive overhanging stories, each composed of a row of windows, or, more properly, 
one wide window divided into sections by carved mullions. Beneath each house 1s 


excayated a cellar, a subterranean recess, which the steps leading to the main entrance 


400 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


bestride like a drawbridge. Wood, brick, stone, and slate, mingled in a way to 
enrapture a painter’s eye, cover what little space is left on the outside of the house 
between the windows. All this is surmounted by a roof of red or violet tiles, or 
of tarred plank, interrupted by apertures to give light to the attics, and pitched at 
an extremely steep angle. ‘These roofs have a fine effect against the background of ' 


a northern sky ; the rain runs off 


them in torrents ; the snow slips 


from them; they suit the climate, 


and need no sweeping in winter. 


“Signs and signboards are an 


attractive feature of the streets, 


A 


with their symbolic devices and in- 


Pag TN 8.) STO 


scriptions, detached from the wall 


and invading the sidewalk. Strict 


oF ISS 
7 ~ a 


municipal regulations should, doubt- 


kh 


| less, forbid this projecting beyond 


V2 


the alignment ; but it is an agree- 


SSeS / 


able interruption to the monotony, 


a FE 
(a32 = 


( 
it 
7 
] 


amuses the eye, and varies the 


| 


au 

= 
UE 
\ ) 
' 


scene with a thousand unexpected 


incidents. Here we have a shield 


j| in glass of various colors, flashing 


in the sunshine with ruby, emerald, 


hr 


. . 


and topaz light: this announces an 


optician, or, in some cases, a con- 


fectioner. Here, suspended to a 
om a 


ma | Hi — Soe i iei|| great ornamental specimen of lock- 


smith’s work, is a lion, holding in 


one paw a compass, in the other 


a mallet, emblem of some guild of 


Canal in Hamburg. coopers. Hlsewhere are the copper 
basins of the barber, bright enough to make Mambrinus’ famous helmet look like 
verdigris ; boards on which are painted oysters, lobsters, herring, indicating the fish- 
dealer; and so on, indefinitely. 

“Walking along, still at random, I came to the maritime part of the city, where 
canals take the place of streets. At the moment it was low water, and vessels lay 
aground in the mud, careening over and showing their hulls in a way to delight a 


water-color painter. Soon the tide came up, and set everything in motion. I would 


S| 


HAA 


ATTY. 


LAWN BY CAPTY Bs 


DEI 


PIRI IVLAIR IKI IPILAC 


x 


, BLADE Wik Ger. 


1k 


eo SCENES IN MANY LANDS. AOI 
7 


suggest Hamburg to artists following in the track of Guardi or Canaletto ; they will 
find here, at every step, new themes as picturesque as those they seek in Venice. 

“This forest of salmon-colored masts, with their maze of cordage, and their yel- 
lowish-brown sails drying in the sun; these tarred hulls and apple-green decks; these 
lateen-yards threatening the windows of neighboring houses; these derricks, standing 
under plank roofs shaped like pagodas; these tackles lifting heavy freight out of ves- 
‘sels and landing it in houses; these bridges opening to give passage to craft of 
-eyery size; these clumps of trees; these gables, overtopped here and there by spires 
and belfries: all this bathed in’ smoke, traversed: by sunlight, and here and _ there 
giving back the glitter of polished metal; the far-off distance blue and misty, and the 
foreground full of vigorous color, — produced effects of the most brilliant and piquant 
novelty. A church-tower, covered with plates of copper, springing from this odd 
medley of rigging and houses, suggests, by its odd green color, the tower of Galata, 
at Constantinople.” 

Hamburg, Bremen, and Frankfort on the Main, have the proud distinction of re- 
maining free cities, forming each with its little territory a state of the Empire. Bre- 
men, the second in importance to Hamburg, lies on the banks of the Weser, thirty 
miles from its mouth, the new and old town lying on opposite banks, and connected 
by handsome bridges. The new contains many gardens and neat white houses ; the 
older portion consists of narrow streets, with many quaint medieval structures. Of 
these the most important are the Cathedral and the Town Hall, represented in the 
engraving facing page 406. 

The Cathedral is now devoted to the Lutheran form of worship, but was orig- 
inally built by the great Archbishop of Bremen and Hamburg, Adalbert, who, in the 
eleventh century, carried on for some time the administration of the empire, in con- 
junction with the Archbishop of Cologne, and at one time just missed his election to 
the papal throne. The original style of this building is Romanesque, but additions 
were later made to it in a style resembling the early English. Its tower is three 
hundred and twenty-four feet in height, and within the church there is a superb new 
organ, one of the finest in Germany; there are, also, fragments of a beautiful rood- 
loft, and there is a very curious old bronze font, supported by four antique figures 
riding on lions, and encircled with small bas-reliefs. 

The Town Hall, on the left in the engraving, is a really magnificent old speci- 
‘men of the later Gothic and of the style of the Renaissance. The side facing the 
cathedral is the earlier portion, that looking into the square being built about 1610. 
Under the building is a famous wine-vault, where are casks named for the Twelve 
Apostles, containing wine, some of which is nearly two hundred years old. There 
are, also, beer cellars and a much-frequented restaurant. 


In the square stands one of the Roland columns, so numerous in northern Ger- 


402 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


many. In the engraving is shown only the pillar against which stands the Roland, 
a figure eighteen feet high, with shield and drawn sword, facing the cathedral. This 
curious emblem of the town liberties and privileges was erected in 1412, to take the 
place of an earlier wooden column of extreme antiquity. It is believed that these 
columns were originally erected after the conversion of the Germans to Christianity, 
to take the place of the sacred trees, around which the Teutonic tribes were accus- 
tomed to assemble for civil and religious purposes. 

The entire territory of Bremen is a drained marsh, intersected by ditches and 
canals, and furnishing good pas- 
turage for cattle. It is in 
reality not a seaport, the depth 


of the river being insufficient; 


but Bremerhafen, at the mouth 


of the Weser, has an excel- 


lent harbor, and a very impor- 
tant trade with the United States 


and Great Britain ; it is inter- 


HH ins 
{UTES 
Shi 


esting specially to ourselves as 


the chief point whence German 


emigrants embark for the United 
States. 
Much older than Bremen, 


however, is Magdeburg, the cap- 


ital of the Prussian province of 


Saxony, a city which had the 


privileges of municipal exist- 


ence ever since Charlemagne. 


Luckless Magdeburg! so strong 
a fortress that the black storm- 


| cloud of war has ever gathered 


thickest around it. No siege 
is so memorable as that in 1631, 


when, after two years’ beleaguer- 


ment, the fierce Tilly carried it 


Interior of Cathedral. Magdeburg. by assault, and massacred men, 


women, and children, then burned nearly every house within the walls. 

The Cathedral, one of the noblest Gothic edifices in northern Germany, was built 
in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, taking the place of an older church erected 
by the Emperor Otho I. Within the choir of the cathedral (see illustration above) 


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TOWN HALL. HALBERSTADT. 


1042 3 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


In this cathedral the horse-shoe arches are of remarkable elegance. There is also 
a stone rood-loft, begun in 1443, rich with carved foliage and other ornaments; a 
a famous alabaster pulpit, sadly mutilated at the time when the French turned this 


noble building into a warehouse and a stable, but still testifying to the genius and skill 


of its designer, Sebastian Extel. 
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Fifty miles by rail from Magdeburg brings the traveller to Halberstadt, the e | 
trance to the Hartz region. This range of hills, the most northerly in Germany, 


about seventy miles long, and from twenty to twenty-eight in width. Rising out of 
the level plain which comprises all northern Germany, its elevation and importance 


is certainly exaggerated, for its highest summit is less than four thousand feet abov: 


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CATHEDRAL. HALBERSTADT. 


406 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


the sea-level ; yet so much romantic interest centres about it that it well repays a 
careful and deliberate survey. 
Ne town in Germany has more fascinating old buildings than Halberstadt. Some 


of the dwelling-houses are real masterpieces of wood-carving. Caryatides and gar- 


goyles have outlines so grotesque that it is quite a study to trace out the design, — 


The Town Hall (see page 403) is a most picturesque union of different styles, the 
leading idea being Gothic. The facade shown in the illustration has a truly re- 
markable originality in its decoration. Along the lower gallery are carved three 
grimacing heads of giant size, and when the night is still, the traveller, watching 
them in the moonlight, can hardly divest himself of the idea that he may at any 


moment hear as well as see the sardonic laughter of these stony mouths. 


Church. Quedlinburg. 


Other grotesque figures adorn the architectural outlines ; in the centre are the 
city arms, and on a higher line are three more shields of unknown origin. 

A few steps from the Town Hall is the Cathedral (see page 405), dominat- 
ing all the busy quarter of the town. It is a beautiful church, worthy to be ranked 
among the finest, although one of the least known, in northern Germany. It belongs 
to the German Gothic style of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The interior 
is especially worthy of study. Its aspect is imposing, and its main outlines have 
much grandeur. The sombre tone of the general coloring gives effect and emphasis 
to the details which are brought forward into daylight. The most’ important feature 
is the stone gallery or tribune separating the chancel from the rest of the church 


(see preceding page). Around the nave are some very curious tombs, with won- 


‘ 


ENGRAVED BY J, GODDEN. 


DRAWN BY CAPT BATTY. 


WOW IN TAIL , 1B RIAA , 


“VEE 


SCENES IV MANY LANDS. 407 
- derful lace-work in stone. There are also baptismal fonts of high antiquity ; the 
remains of a Gothic sacrament-house of remarkable interest; two very ancient cande. 

labra of colossal size; and the monument of a margrave of Brandenburg, dated 1558. 
___ ~*The primitive cathedral was constructed by Charlemagne, and destroyed in the 

twelfth century by Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, who besieged the 


city, and took it by storm, and destroying four monasteries and several churches. 


m ~ ni ky a :, Yi ag 
wae Ny Neste iy peat 


iN Jn bye) 


Castle of Regenstein. 


In former times one might go from Halberstadt to Quedlinburg in two hours 
by carriage ; now, by rail, it takes longer, and impatient travellers aver there is not 
on the face of the earth so slow a train as that between these two little German 
cities. 

In Quedlinburg, the chief attraction to the visitor is a very ancient church with 


a crypt of much antiquity (see opposite page) under the castle, This part of the 


408 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


structure dates from the tenth century. The capitals of the columns are of rare 
richness of design. Before an ancient altar are the tombs of Henry the Fowler, and 
the Empress Matilda, protectress of the convent, who retired thither after her hus- 
band’s death. Here also are interred the abbesses of Quedlinburg, and the mortal re- 
mains of the fair Aurora von K®énigsmark, mother of Marshal Saxe. 

In the neighborhood of Quedlinburg are many picturesque views, and the gen-. 


eral aspect of the country is animated and gay. A few miles distant is the Castle 


of Falkenstein (see engraving opposite), which stands on the top of a high, narrow 


ledge of rock, overlooking a beautiful valley. 

More romantic are the ruins of Regenstein, perched on the summit of a steep 
rock (see page 407) which rises three hundred feet above the plain, the gray rock 
and the gray ruin blending into one uniform tint, over and around which is lavished 
all the luxuriance of German wild flowers. According to tradition, a castle was erected 
originally on this spot by the Saxons, in the latter part of the fifth century, and 
some fragments of that early structure and the rock-hewn cells and passages under- 
neath it, are to this day shown the visitor. 


The eastern part of the Hartz region is a beautiful country, rich in flowers and 


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“SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 409 


full of life. It is a magnificent park abounding in venerable oaks, beeches slim and 
tall, birches with their silvery bark, lofty elms, and sombre firs. Here, one comes 
to some friendly mill, some hamlet hidden amid its orchards, some picturesque ruin 
oyergrown with moss and ivy, and crowned with a waving garland of wild flowers 
~The same cheerfulness extends to the dwellers in this tranquil Eden ; men and women 
and children greet the passer-by with friendly word and gesture, and look into his 
‘face with honest untroubled eyes. 


In the upper or western region, all is different. The road leads through gloomy 


The Devil’s Bridge in the Bode Valley. 


pine-woods, and over decaying logs and faded mosses. It is rare to see a cultivated 
field or a fruit-tree. Occasionally a charcoal-burner, or a wood-cutter, passes, his long 
pole or his axe upon his shoulder. In the immediate neighborhood of the villages 
the scene is more animated; shepherds with their flocks of sheep are seen, the coal- 
carrier, and, now and then, the miner, with his pale and serious face. Almost a 
thousand years ago the extraordinary mineral treasures of the Hartz were discovered, 
and yet the hard-working people remain poor. The vapors of arsenic and lead to 
which they are exposed impair their health, and the extreme heat of the smelting 
furnaces, whose fire is never extinguished, seems to waste and wither them like the 


_ breath of a sirocco. 


410 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


deep cleft with irregular, rocky walls, through which runs the sparkling little rive = 


rd 


We follow it, however, along the cliff, looking down where, eight hundred feet 
below, the waters foam and dash, and tiny cascades leap from one side or the other 
to swell the hurrying stream. And here begin the legends of the Hartz. The irreg- 


ular rocky pinnacles rising in the background over the Pool in the Bode Valley (see 


page 409) are two of the Seven Brothers, English lovers of seven maidens of the 
land. The lovers were changed to stone, when they came to wed and bear away thei 
promised brides, by a powerful magician whom seven slighted German lovers of the 
same maidens had enlisted to revenge their injury. The magician waylaid the Eng- 
lish brothers by night, as they were making their escape with their brides, and slew 
them, and carried the maidens back to their castle, whence, escaping again at early 


wh 
hi fh 
Pay 


THE WITCHES’ BALL ROOM. 


. 


412 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


morning, the seven afflicted fair ones found, where their lovers had been left dead upon 
the grass, seven tall cliffs rismg high into the air. One wonders how each maiden 
knew her own,— possibly, among lovers changed to stone one is as good as another, 


— but in some way each made her choice, and, sitting down at his feet, wept night 


SES LS ROGAN 


= 


Hermit’s Rocks. 


and morning till she wept herself away into a little crystal spring ; and so remains 
there to this day. 

The road by which we follow the river widens further on, and we come out 
upon rude granite masses piled irregularly one upon another like stairs, till, reach- 


ing the summit, the guide points out a print in the rock shaped like a horse-shoe 


Ty. 


DRAWN BY CAPTY B 


_ SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 413 


‘she landed where her giant steed left in the rock the impress of his hoof. She 
fleeing from a demon lover, using the horse he had given her himself as aid 
q in ‘the flight; and though this seems hardly fair, we find she had good luck, and 


reached her human lover safely, and was happy ever after. 
- “hee \ 
Over across is the Witches’ Ballroom. Having no enchanted horse on which to 


_ make the leap, the traveller must go down the nearly perpendicular cliff by a wind- 


ing path leading to the bottom ‘of the ravine, thence crossing from rock to rock a 


, nd of natural bridge, ascend on the other side, by a kind of rude staircase of 


The Monk. 


landscape of the Bode Valley, and on the other the vast plain which stretches illim- 


- itably towards the west. This is a peculiarity of the Lower Hartz region, to pre- 


sent at once the wildest scenery and the most monotonous. 


A great variety of singularly-shaped rocks attract the eye, and have been objects 


} 
f 


of awe-struck admiration to the peasantry, no doubt, ever since the land was inhabited. 
ee: ames are given them in memorial of their connection with scenes of witchcraft : 
' “The Deyil’s Chair,” “The Sorcerer’s Altar,’ and the like. Less sinister are names 
~ attached to those represented on pages 412 and 413: “The Hermit’s Rocks,” and “The 
y onk,” though it may be they perpetuate the fate of some luckless anchorite or 
. -ecclesiastic, whose curiosity bringing him too near the scene of evil, he was changed 


“ 


to stone as a punishment for the crime. 


414 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


i | 

From the height of the Witches’ Ballroom, far away to the west, is seen the 
Brocken, in its misty veil, attracting us even by daylight with a kind of supernat. 
ural fascination. Thither we direct our course, not as the witches go, however, but 


by a good carriage road down to the highway, aad thence to Wernigerode, the most 
favorable point of departure for the mountain. 


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From the windows of the White Stag— where the traveller will lodge if he is— 
wise — he may see over the way another old Town Hall, of much interest, though 
scarcely quite so picturesque as that of Halberstadt. Two little towers rise in front 


416 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


of the building, united by a balcony, beneath which are some carved wooden figures 
finely executed. Some old houses and a bronze fountain complete the picture, which 
has much vivacity and color added to it by the presence of peasants in their quaint 
costumes. 

The ascent of the Brocken is by a good carriage road, and has no _ ineidents 
of danger or difficulty unless a sudden rain-storm with a sharp wind and a dash 
of hail should make the temperature somewhat too severe. The famous legends of 
the Walpurgis Night, immortalized by Goethe, are known to every one, and add a 
weird spell to the place, if one can for a moment forget the carriage road and the 
well-ordered hotel, the Brocken House, which crowns the summit. | 

The traveller who passes a night on the Brocken may be rewarded by the sight 
of the spectre (see preceding page), which is, as everybody knows, only one’s own 
figure enlarged to giant proportions and thrown up against the sky, like the pictures 
shown by the stereopticon. The point for this view is some way down the hill, and 
the favorable moment is sunrise or sunset. 

For the mining region of the Hartz Mountains no illustration is more appropri- 
ate, as regards general scenery, than the engraving facing page 412, which represents 
the Oker Valley. The little river tumbles with foaming waves over huge fragments 
of rock, which have fallen from its steep banks into the chasm through which it 
runs. Human industry has penetrated, however, into the deepest recesses of these 
pine forests, and the traveller in the narrow roads frequently meets a train of mules 
laden with charcoal or with precious ores from the mines with which the whole region 
abounds. 

Towards the mouth of the valley the scenery loses something of its wildness ; 
there is a_ little village with smelting-houses, and just at the entrance a good stone 
bridge with a single arch. 

The road through the Oker Valley passes near the Rammelsberg, an old mining 
region, where for eight hundred years work has been carried on, till the whole 
mountain is riddled through and through with shafts and galleries, and yet its min- 
eral wealth is not even now exhausted. The old mines are, however, not profitable 
enough to make it really worth while to carry on the work; but a large part of the 
population depend for support upon this industry, poor though it is, and the goy- 
ernment has on this account been unwilling to abandon them. 

No less than five varieties of valuable metals have been dug here, —gold, silver, 
copper, lead, and zinc,—but most of them in small quantity. A curious old-fash- 
ioned method of mining has till lately prevailed in these mines, a relic apparently of 
the days before the invention of gunpowder. Large heaps of wood are piled up 
within the mine, against the walls of rock in which the metal abounds. These heaps 


are then set on fire, and when they are burning well all the openings are closed, 


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A f ow miles west of the Hartz country flows the Weser, in comparison with the 
ne and | the Danube a somewhat prosaic river, yet not without its quaint legends 
here > and there, its lovely landscape. For legend, take Hameln (see engraving 
cing page 416). It is a curious old place, full of wooden houses in the old Ger- 
un style, | and has one fine chureh, now falling into ruin. The place was once a 
ng’ fortress, but the works were destroyed by the French in 1808, and now the 
over the river is laid out in public walks, and has a grotto celebrated for its 
As for its legend, who does not know Browning’s ballad, — 
“ Hameln town’s in Brunswick, 

By famous Hanover city ; 
The river Weser, deep and wide, 
Washes its wall on the southern side, 
A pleasanter spot you never spied. 

But when begins my ditty, 
Almost five hundred years ago, 
To see the townsfolk suffer so 

From vermin, ’twas a pity.” 

Rats ! 

They fought the dogs, and killed the cats, 

And bit the babies in the cradles, 
And ate the cheeses out of the vats, — 

And licked the soup from the cook’s own ladles, 
Split open the kegs of salted sprats, 
Made nests inside men’s Sunday hats, 
And even spoiled the women’s chats 

By drowning their speaking 

With shrieking and squeaking 
In fifty different sharps and flats ;” 


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mdb Dw appeared to mayor and corporation, : as they sat despairing around the council- 
able, tl os he ance figure in quaint attire, who looked — 

ak “...as my great-grandsire, 
Starting up at the Trump of Doom’s tone, 

Had walked this way from his painted tomb-stone ;” 


who ) said that for a thousand guilders he would free their town from rats. 
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418 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. = 


Which having done he asked his reward, and was scornfully denied it, and ‘so tool 
his revenge instead, playing such entrancing music on his pipe, that, as before the 
rats had followed him into the Weser, where they were all drowned, now the chil- 


dren followed him: — 


“ All the little boys and girls, 
With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls, 
Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after 


The wonderful music, with shouting and laughter.” 
Ah) then and there was direful panic in Hameln city, and — 


“The mayor was dumb, and the council stood 
As if they were changed into blocks of wood, 
Unable to move a step, or cry 
To the children merrily skipping by, — 

And could only follow with the eye 

That joyous crowd at the Piper’s back. 

But how the mayor was on the rack, 

. And the wretched council’s bosoms beat, 

As the Piper turned from the high street, 

To where the Weser rolled its waters 

Right in the way of their sons and daughters! 
However, he turned from south to west, 

And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed, 
And after him the children pressed ; 

Great was the joy in every breast. 

‘He never can cross that mighty top! 

He’s forced to let the piping drop, 

And we shall see our children stop.’ 

When, lo! as they reached the mountain side, 
A wondrous portal opened wide, 

As if a cavern were suddenly hollowed; 

And the Piper advanced, and the children followed ; 
And when all were in to the very last, 

The door in the mountain side shut fast.” 


ds 


For scenery on the Weser observe the Porta Westphalica (see engraving facing 
page 420), the river’s passage from the Westphalian plain into the great plain of 
Northern Germany, through a wide rift in the undulating chain of mountains called 
the Siebengebirge. The two hills which form the sides of this gateway, at their 
base show rocks of red sandstone, their sides and summits being covered with 1 <u- 
riant forests. ‘The hill on the left is called Wittekindsberg, in memory of the ‘Saxon 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 419 


. 


hero who long held out against Charlemagne, and was at last baptized by him, so 
says tradition, in the ruined chapel near the top. On the very summit of the Witte- 


kindsberg now stands a stone tower, sixty feet high, dedicated in 1830, “To the 


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Admirers of Nature;” and lovely indeed is the view obtained thence. The other hill 
is called the Jacobsberg, a name given it by Frederick the Great, from one of his 
old soldiers, who settled here as a vintager, and supplied the king with grapes whick 


420 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


his Majesty deigned highly to approve. In the level distance is Minden, in early” 
times the residence of several of the German emperors and the scene of many Diets 
of the German Empire. North of the town lies the battle-field where Prince Ferdi- 


nand of Brunswick defeated the French in 1759. 
Or again, notice the beautiful surroundings of Karlshafen (see engraving facing 


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The Wartburg. 


page 426). The little town stands at the junction of the Diemel with the Weser; and 
in the engraving the Diemel is seen in the foreground, coming down gently enough 
now, but in the early spring a tumultuous roaring torrent, overflowing its banks, and 
threatening the solid stone bridge that spans it. Much in this landscape is sugges- 


tive of England, a picture not grand but lovely, and luxuriant with green slopes and 


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SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 421 


richly-wooded hill-sides. The town itself was founded in 1700, by emigrant Huguenots 
driven out of France at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. <A little way up the 


river are two more of their settlements, named, in a fashion suggesting the English 


Puritan nomenclature, “Truth of God,” and “Peace of Conscience.” 


Te eT eee a H| i! 
hh a 5 a ie Ne 


Nuit 


Luther’s Room in the Wartburg. 


At the town of Miinden two rivers, the Fulda and the Werra, unite to form 
the Weser. The Werra comes down from the famous Thuringian forests, making 
the western boundary of Thuringia; following its banks a few miles upward from 
the point of junction brings us first to Hisenach, upon the edge of the great forest. 


And here all things remind us of Luther, —not only his house, which they show us 


i 


422 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


as the asylum in which the great reformer was sheltered from May, 1521, to Ma h 
1522, the place he loved to call his Patmos, and the scene where he wrote seyeral 


of his works and completed a large portion of his translation’ of the Bible. 


The Marienglashohle. 


A 
A continual ascent, not more, however, than a half-hour’s walk, leads up to the 


old castle, a building dating, in its earliest portions, from 1150. It is by no means 


a picturesque structure, but is finely situated, with an outlook over a wide range of 


wild forest-clad hills. Entering the Wartburg, the traveller finds himself carried bac! 


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THE ANNA VALLEY. 


424 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


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— SS} 
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The Thorstein Rocks. 


admirable hospitality, the Wartburg has sheltered by turns the purest embodiment of 
Roman Catholic mysticism and the vigorous athlete of German Protestant faith. It has 
been the shrine of one Christian belief, and the cradle of another, differing in externals, 


| Ni I 
i 


CATHEDRAL ERFURT. 


426 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


yet, one cannot doubt, alike in the vital centre of faith in God and loyal obedience ‘to 
Him. . 


The chamber in which Luther lived is shown us (page 421), and no one can fail to 


. 


f 


be deeply moved by the associations that haunt the spot. Here this great man dwelt 
alone for nearly a year, and though it be true that the ink-stain on the wall tells of 
the momentary hallucination which brought before his eyes in visible form the image of 
the great adversary of mankind, it is no less true that from out these four walls came 
not alone the German language fixed for all time by that peerless translation of the 
Bible, but a whole propaganda of religious liberty whose last word has not yet been 
spoken, nor whose last truth reached. 

Still another association makes venerable the old castle of the Wartburg. <A great 
hall in the upper story, from whose Byzantine twin-windows one looks out on the 
grand woods which shut in the view, and upon whose walls certain Oriental deco- 
rations constantly recall the period of the return from the crusades, has received the 
appellation “The Singers’ Hall.” And here in truth was held that great tournament 
of minstrelsy which makes the second act in Wagner’s opera of Tannhduser. A fresco 
painting of considerable size is consecrated to its memory in the very place where it 
occurred. In an age like our own, the shadow of these knightly singers of other 
days cannot fall across men’s hearts without making them thrill with a noble emotion, 
and may it be long before poetry shall cease to honor such names as those of 
Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Walther von der Vogelweide ! 

This castle is historically the most important edifice of its class in all Germany, 
and its size and state of preservation also render it remarkable in an artistic point 
of view. ‘The principal building is one hundred and fifty feet in length and fifty in 
width. It is three stories high without counting the basement, which is added to 
the height at one end by the slope of the ground. All along the front of every 
story is an open corridor leading to the inner rooms, and the general appearance of 
the building is solid and imposing, the whole effect being obtained by the grouping of 
the openings, in which respect it resembles the older palaces of Venice more than any 
other structures of the same class. It has not perhaps their minute elegance, but it far 
surpasses them in grandeur, and in all the elements of true architectural magnificence. 
As a fortification it has no pretensions to any importance or interest; and this is a 
somewhat singular fact, because the Rhine land is full of buildings of nearly the 
same date, every one of which was a genuine fortress. 

Returning to Hisenach, the traveller will find another day’s enjoyment in a visit 
to the Marienglashéhle, a curious cavern in the neighborhood (page 422); to the Rocks 
of Thorstein (page 424); and also to the Anna Valley (page 423), a cool and moss- 
grown glen, hemmed in by rocks, and traversed by a clear stream which, in places, 


has barely room to make its way, so near do the walls approach each other. 


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SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 427 


Less than two hours by rail brings us to Erfurt, on Prussian soil, a place of 


at importance from its fortifications and its position. ‘This very oid town was once 
gre Pp J 


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Goethe’s Promenade. Weimar. 


to the eighteenth century, it was one of the Hanse towns, and the centre of traffic 


of a great part of Europe, lying, as it did, on the great commercial highway between 


-Dantzic and Lubeck on the north, and the Italian cities on the south, At Erfurt, 


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428 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. } 


+ 
in 1807, was held Napoleon’s famous Congress of Sovereigns. There was, likewist 
a university at Erfurt until 1816, at which time it was suppressed. a’ 

Here we again meet memorials of Luther, for it was in the Augustine monas- 
tery of Erfurt that the reformer took his vows as monk in 1505, and here spent 
several years of his life. The Cathedral (page 425), which stands on an eminence, 
is a noble Gothic building of which the foundation dates to the time of St. Boni- 
face, the first apostle to Thuringia, as early, that is to say, as the middle of the 
eighth century. The original church being of wood, all that remains of ‘it are nS 
few stones of the foundation, buried deep under-ground. 3 

The chief feature of the church is the choir, wider than the central aisle of ' 
the nave, and not on a line with it. The nave, built in 1472, has side aisles wider. 
than the centre, and is partly separated from the choir by two stately towers of he 
twelfth century. In the north one hangs a famous bell, “Big Susanna,” weighing | 
over ten tons, highly ornamented, and dated 1447. The north portal, which leads 
into the transept, has a beautiful triangular porch much adorned with statues, reliefs, 
and tracery. 4 

The building at the right with three spires is the Church of St. Severus, co n= 
taining a remarkable carving in high relief of the Archangel Michael, and a richly 
decorated font, an example of a remarkable kind of tracery bearing date 1467. — 

The next station on the railway is Weimar, a dull-looking provincial town. It 
is the capital of the duchy, but this adds nothing to its interest now. All there is 
in Weimar attracting the traveller is the memory of the brilliant circle of men of 
genius who were gathered here during the last half of the eighteenth century, around 
their patron and admirer, Karl August. After all, to the orand-duke’s mother, M ria, 
belongs the honor of founding this magnificent coterie. A duchess of Brunsy 
by birth, she married and came to Weimar in 1756. Being left a widow two years 
later, she found solace in the pursuits of literature, and trained her boy, the yo ng 
grand-duke, to love it too. Thanks to the noble minds she had the art of attract 
ing to her unpretending court, the youth escaped from the rather coarse tastes ol 
his race and time, and intellectual occupations grew to be a second nature to. him 
During the first ten years of his personal rule, the men of letters who surroul 
him were called to share in many amusements not quite literary in their charai e 
But from 1785 began the veritable “age of gold” for Weimar, the period of the 
creation of those wonderful works which have made the little grand-duchy the lit- 
erary centre of the great German nation. But, alas! all human grandeur has its 
decline. Herder died in 1803, Schiller in 1805; eight years later it was the t m 0 
Wieland ; Goethe remained till the last, and then he too disappeared from earth 


CASTLE. 


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430 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


The last city of Thuringia which claims our notice is Coburg, on the Franeo- 


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nian border. It is a prosperous little place, whose cheerfulness amounts to a proverb, — 


and yet the charm is not in the city itself so much as in its neighborhood, althougt 


the streets are neat, and the houses handsome, (see above). But there is nothin 


SCENES [IN MANY LANDS. 431] 


“more graceful and radiant than these picturesque environs, where so many artistic 
| lives have been spent. Amid these pastoral surroundings, Jean Paul composed some 
of his most famous works, notably the Titan and the Flegeljahre. 

. i The old fortress, standing five hundred feet above the town, is the chief attrac- 
“tion to the visitor. The road which leads up to it is a beautiful avenue of stately 


| “trees. But the finest point about the castle is the view seen from the crenellated plat- 


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Bamberg. 


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form of the old donjon. One could linger there for hours, his eyes fixed on the blue 
- mountainous: line of the horizon. Again we are reminded of Luther, who was in con- 


_ cealment: here in 1530. His rooms are shown with the same furniture they had in his 


time, and the pulpit from which he preached, in the curious old chapel. A room, 
~ panelled with oak inlaid with woods of various kinds, is much admired. There is a 


fine show of old armor, and mementos of Wallenstein’s siege, in 1632. 
” r | : 


Te 


a 


432 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


One more of the old German cities we shall visit, on our southward way in 7 


Switzerland: this is Bamberg, the capital of the little ecclesiastical principality 


ee 


the same name. 

It has but one edifice of any note, but that enjoys the distinction of ranking 
with the finest church architecture of Germany. It is a noble structure of the Roman- 
esque style, built by the Emperor Henry IT., 1004-1012; but destroyed by fire, except 
the east end (seen in the illustration page 431), and rebuilt in 1100. This ancient apse 
has very fine clustered columns, united in a manner unusual in Germany, and with 
its elegant cornices and drip-stones, and circular doors, has great beauty and grace. 
The Emperor Henry II. is buried here, and so also is Pope Clement II., who had 
been Bishop of Bamberg. No work of King Louis of Bavaria was ever more judi- 
cious, or should be more commended by lovers of art, than his thorough and faithful 


restoration of this grand old church. 


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SARGENT, s ee DEUAGAARUER'B 


SCENES INV MANY LANDS. 433 


DOWN THE RHINE. 


ICTOR HUGO remarks: Of all rivers I love the Rhine. It 
is a noble stream, worthy of the great nations to whom it has 
belonged. It unites all charms: it is rapid like the Rhone, broad 
as the Loire, tortuous as the Seine, royal like the Dannbe, historic 
as the Tiber, mysterious as the Nile, flecked with gold like an 
American river, overhung with fables and phantoms like a river of 
Asia. 

Before history begins, — perhaps before man existed, — where 
now the Rhine flows, smoked and blazed a double row of volca- 
noes, which have left behind them two heaps of lava and basalt, in 
parallel rows like two enormous walls. Through this great road the 
Rhine found its way to the sea, and, how early we know not, the 
great family of Celts or Gauls made their home upon its banks. 
Centuries passed away, and Julius Cesar came: Drusus built his fifty 
forts; Agrippa established his colony: the Rhine belonged to Rome. 
The colonial period came to its close amid the storm of barbarian 
incursions, and the Rhenish hill-tops were crowded with Roman ruins 
in the sixth century, as to-day they are with the dilapidated castles belonging to the 
feudal period. 

These ruins Charlemagne restored, rebuilt these fortresses, and garrisoned them 
against the old German tribes gathering themselves together under new names, but 
with the same spirit which led their forefathers to the destruction of Rome: at May- 
ence he built a bridge whose ruins are yet to be seen under the water; he re- 
paired an aqueduct at Borm, and the Roman road at Bacharach and other towns. 
After Charlemagne, followed a period in which civilization seemed to be extinct; his- 
tory was effaced; the men and events of this dark age traverse the Rhine like 
shadows, throwing upon its water faint luminous images, which vanish as soon as seen. 
The historic period is followed by the legendary period, —for the human imagination, 
like nature, abhors a vacuum. Silence human yoices, and nature sets all the birds 


chattering, makes the leaves rustle on the trees, and the infinite voices of solitude 


434 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. . 


murmur from eyery recess of the woodland. Let historic certainty cease, and the 
imagination endows with life, shadows, dreams, and visions. Fables increase and thrive 
in the gaps of broken history, like wild vegetation in a ruined palace. 

At once sprung up on the banks of the Rhine a whole world of legends and 
fables. Where some faint rays of dawning civilization shone, a thousand charming 
figures started into life; in the gloomy depths there were hideous forms and 
terrific phantoms. ‘Then, — while-uprose beside the Roman ruins which are now utterly 
gone, the Gothic and Saxon castles which are now dismantled,—a crowd of imagi- 
nary beings, in direct communication with the fair maidens and handsome knights of 
the day, filled all the valley of the Rhine. There were oreads, who dwelt in the 
woods; undines, who inhabited the waters; gnomes, who lived under the earth; the 
spirit of the rocks; the black huntsman who swept through the forests mounted upon 
a gigantic stag; the maiden of the black marsh; the six maidens of the red marsh; 
Wodan, the ten-handed divinity; the bearded Everard, who gave advice to wandering 
princes; the horned Siegfried, who destroyed dragons in their caves. The devil set 
up his stone at Teufelstein and his ladder at Teufelsleiter ; he went so far as to 
preach at Gernsbach, near the Black Forest; but happily, on the other side of the 
river, opposite the Devil’s Pulpit, celestial hands erected the Pulpit of the Angel. 
While the Seven Mountains, that great extinct crater, was filled with monsters, hy- 
dras, and gigantic spectres, at the other extremity of the chain, at the entrance to 
the Rhine valley, the sharp wind from the Wisper used to bring clouds of old fairies 
no bigger than grasshoppers. 

Among the chimeras of this early period now and then appear real figures of flesh 
and blood, chiefly Charlemagne and Roland, and later, the Eniperor Otho, Frederick 
Barbarossa, and Adolph of Nassau. These historic figures mingle in the fairy tales of 
the time; it is the tradition of real events persisting under the mass of dreams and fan- 
cies; it is history vaguely shining through fable; it is the ruin appearing here and there 
under the flowers. 

Presently shadows disappear, fairy tales cease, daylight is over all the land, civili- 
zation and history again take shape. And now we have the electoral princes, who 
make at their will the German emperor; and prince-bishops, who mingle in war and 
politics, who dabble in alchemy, and are worldly-minded as any secular prince of 
them all. And the Rhine takes an aspect at once military and religious. Abbeys 
and convents multiply ; churches half-way up the hill-side unite the village lying 
below with the feudal donjon on the crest,—a fit image of the priest’s true place in 
human life. The ecclesiastical princes multiply edifices in the Rhine valley, as once 
the Roman prefects did. The Archbishop Baldwin of Treves builds the church of 
Oberwesel; the Archbishop Henry of Wittingen constructs a bridge at Coblenz over 


the Moselle; the Archbishop Walram of Juliers sanctifies by a magnificent cross of 


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SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 435 


carved stone the Roman ruins and the volcanic cone of Godesburg, a region until 
then much suspected of witchcraft. At the same time the Orders of Chivalry took 
up their positions along the Rhine: the Teutonic Order was installed at Mayence ; 
the Knights of Rhodes possessed Martinshof; the Templars occupied Boppart and St. 
Goar on the banks of the Rhine, and Trarbach between the Rhine and the Moselle. 
Commerce, too, established her colonies; a crowd of little cities grew up at the con- 
fluence of all the lesser streams which pour themselves into the Rhine, —in imitation 
of Coblenz, at the mouth of the Moselle, and Mayence at the mouth of the Main. 

What the Rhine has been in later times as the boundary and scene of conten- 
tion between Germans and French, all know. Having thus glanced at its history, let 
us look at it from the geographical point of view. 

In its earliest stages, the Rhine consists of three branches, the Fore, the Middle, 
and the Back Rhine, and in these branches absorbs nearly all the drainage of the 
northern basin of the Alps. Hach rises in a dreary region of ice-clad rocks and 
steel-blue glaciers, several thousand feet above the sea. In the preceding engraving 
we have represented two of the earliest bridges which span the infant stream: that 
over the Fore Rhine being only noteworthy as the first stone bridge which crosses it; 
that over the Back Rhine being one of the three famous bridges of the Via Mala, 
and worthy of more extended notice. 

The defile is some three miles in length, and cleaves an enormous mountain 
ridge which lies across the river’s way, and perhaps once held it confined as a lake. 
The precipices which tower above it rise in some places to a height of sixteen hun- 
dred feet, and are at some points not more than ten yards apart. The Rhine, crowded 
into this narrow space, is barely audible, so far below is it, although it rushes and 
foams madly in its rapid course. The rocks of slate and limestone composing the 
walls of this ravine are so hard that the weather has produced almost no effect upon 
them; the fracture is fresh and sharp enough to suggest the thought that if the 
chasm were closed up by some great convulsion of nature similar to that which dis- 
united the two sides, they would match together again, and leave not even a seam 
on the surface of the ground to show where they had been thrust asunder. In 
ancient times the defile was regarded as inaccessible for human foot, and the peasants 
were accustomed to make a long detour in passing around it. In 1470, a road was 
laid out, passing through a portion of the Via Mala, but avoiding the more danger- 
ous section of it. In the present century, however, the new road, as seen in the 
engraving, has been engineered by an Italian, Pocobelli, and the three bridges built 
by which the road crosses from side to side, as one rocky wall or the other offered 
a little better opportunity for it. At one point a projecting buttress of rock has 
been pierced by a tunnel two hundred and sixteen feet in length, and for more than 


436 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


a thousand feet the road is carried along beneath a sort of stone canopy, ie 
it was necessary all the way to blast the rock for a foothold. ~ 
The Middle Bridge, at a height of four hundred feet above the water, affords the 
most magnificent view of this tremendous ravine, and is itself a picture of graceful. 
ness and elegance, spanning with its light arch the black gulf below. 
About a hundred miles from its glacier sources, the Little Rhine, only about two 


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Mayence. 


hundred and fifty feet wide, falls into the basin which we call the Lake of Constance, 
and the Germans know as the Boden-See. In the engraving facing page 438 is 
represented the little town of Rheineck, the last point on the river, and the broad 
expanse of the lake stretching away in the distance. The clear green water is never 
quite smooth, and in stormy weather its white caps are like the sea, while the Rhine 


is a wide, shallow, muddy stream, constantly changing its channel and overflowing its 
banks. | 


SCENES INV MANY LANDS. 437 


The little town of Rheineck has a thousand inhabitants, and with its manufac- 
| tories, its vineyards, and its markets and fairs, is the busiest place in all the neigh- 
borhood. 

And here, sadly grieved at the impossibility of representing in the space allotted 
to the Rhine, a tenth, or indeed a hundredth part of all its beauties, we must leave 
the Swiss river, letting these pictures stand for its Alpine section, and ask our 
readers to come with us to the old German city of Mayence, one of the most inter- 
esting of all the Rhenish towns, in an historical point of view. 

Here was a Roman camp thirty-eight years before Christ; and -here, in 14 B. ¢., 
Drusus founded the city. An hexagonal reservoir, and an aqueduct of which sixty-two 
pillars are yet standing, are memorials of the Roman rule. It is said that Mayence 
was the scene of Constantine’s vision of the cross, and it is unquestionably true that 
here was established the first archiepiscopal see in Germany. In the thirteenth and 
fourteenth centuries they called it “golden Mayence,” for its commercial prosperity; 
and it is now the strongest fortress of the German empire. 

In the illustration (page 436) is seen in the foreground the statue of Guten- 
berg, designed by Thorwaldsen and executed at Paris, the cost being defrayed by 
contributions from all parts of Europe. Gutenberg was born here in 1397, and it 
was here that he established himself, on his return from Strasburg, and in a house 
still existing he printed his Biblia Latina. 

The Cathedral of Mayence, whose towers are seen in the background of the pic- 
ture, is one of the most interesting old structures in all Germany. It was founded 
in 978, and has been six times partially burnt and rebuilt, and therefore affords speci- 
mens of the architecture of three successive centuries, besides what remains of its 
original design. Out of these many changes has arisen the curious fact that it has 
no fagade, but is terminated by an apse and a round tower at each end. It seems, 
indeed, like two churches united to one another by their fagades. The two crosses 
which make the ground-plan are joined at their base. Belonging to different peri- 
ods, the two halves of the cathedral differ widely in style. The first and smaller 
one is part of the original edifice, founded in 978, and completed in 1009. The 
second, whose huge bell-tower is two hundred feet high, was begun shortly after, 
but was burned in 1190, and by degrees rebuilt. Not longer than a hundred years 
ago, the reigning taste invaded this ancient building: all the flora of the French 
style of Louis Quinze sprung up about its Byzantine lacework, its Lombard lozenges, 
and its round arches of the Saxon style; and to-day this grotesque vegetation still 
covers the old apse. The great tower, a heavy cone, broad at its base, is laden 
with three rich carved stone diadems, their diameter decreasing from base to sum- 
mit. Upon the other tower, which is grave, simple, Byzantine and Gothic, has been 


erected by modern architects, probably for economy’s sake, a simple cupola of zinc, 


438 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


without gilding or ornament, resembling in shape the ancient pontifical cap of prim- 
itive times, and at its base surrounded by a circle of sharp-pointed gables, copied 
apparently from the Lombard iron crown. It is, so to speak, the severe tiara of 
Gregory VII. face to face with the magnificent one of Boniface VIII. A grand idea, 
says Victor Hugo, designed, wrought, and placed there by time and chance, those 
two great architects. 

The interior of the cathedral of Mayence is of singular simplicity as regards 
color, and is filled with broad light. It has many fine pictures, and frescos, and 
gilded columns, but the real treasures of this vast edifice are the tombs of the elector- 
archbishops. The church is paved with tombs, the pillars rest on them, the altars are 
made of them, the walls are covered with them. Of this great number, thirty-eight are 


those of archbishops, and, covering a period of six centuries, they exhibit every variety 


Frankfort-on-the-Main. 


of mortuary sculpture. There are skeleton archbishops bearing in fleshless fingers their 
mitres and wreaths. There are archbishops sleeping in their sarcophagi, the head 
resting on the hand. There are gigantic figures, having Apocalyptic beasts at their 
feet, crowning, at the same moment, an emperor with one hand and a king with the 
other. Armorial designs, heraldic mantles, the mitre, the crown, the electoral hat, the 
cardinal’s hat, sceptres, swords, and crosses abound, are heaped upon these monuments, 
and strive to reconstruct before the eye of the passer-by that great and formidable 


figure who presided over the nine electors of the German empire, the Archbishop of 
Mayence. 


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= SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 439 


Besides the tombs, each apse has its special ornament. The more ancient one, 

decorated with two exquisite Byzantine staircases, contains a magnificent font in bronze 
of the fourteenth century, having on its front the figures of St. Martin and the Twelve 

Apostles. The other apse has a great choir-screen of black oak, in which the fren- 
zied style of the eighteenth century is displayed, in a rebellion against the straight line, 
so desperate that it almost becomes beautiful. Never was a more powerful fancy, a 
more varied invention, a more delicate touch, pressed into the service of bad _ taste. 
Four statues of early dignitaries, civil and ecclesiastical, stand around the chancel, 
and at its entrance the stately figures of Aaron and of Melchizedec keep everlast- 
ing watch and ward. 

As regards the city of Mayence, the Rhine, here about thirteen hundred feet wide, 
brings it much stir and animation. At Mayence begins the steamboat navigation of the 
Rhine. Here we enter upon the fertile country of the Rheingau, of which more anon. 
But we cannot leave this portion of the river without a glance at Frankfort-on-the- 
Main, its neighbor (page 438) making almost one city with it, connected as the two 
are by railway, and by the most intimate associations of every kind. 

Frankfort, the great imperial city of the Middle Ages, however no longer exists. 
The narrow streets, through which Charles V. and his cavaliers were wont to ride, 
the peaked gable roofs, the wooden fronts to the houses all crowded with quaint and 
curious carving, have vanished before the demon of improvement. Whoever visits 
Frankfort, fresh from the pages of the old chroniclers, will be astonished to find how 
much of its past has disappeared, how little really remains of the grand old medizx- 
val city. 

Among the ecclesiastical buildings of Frankfort, the first and foremost is of 
course the Cathedral, or Church of St. Bartholomew, which stands conspicuous in the 
illustration on page 438, with its heavy mass and unfinished tower. Its effect is 
quaint and picturesque, although there is a lack of harmony in many of the details. 
In 1838, Victor Hugo visited this cathedral, and climbed to the platform of the 
tower. It will be, perhaps, an agreeable variety in our narrative to tell in his own 
words what he found on the summit. 

“JT desired to ascend the tower.. The custodian, who had showed me the church, 
left me at the foot of the stairs, and I went up alone. Reaching the top, I found 
my way barred by an iron gate; I called, and no one answered. I took the lib- 
erty to climb over the barrier, and found myself upon the platform of the tower. 
It was an enchanting scene. Overhead, a bright sun; at my feet, the whole city; 
on the left, the market-place ; on the right, the old street of the Jews; here and 
there an old church, two or three tall belfries flanked with turrets, and repeated, 

as if by echoes from the edge of the horizon, by two or three old watch-towers, 


marking formerly the limits of the little free state; behind me the Main, a silver 


440 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


¢ 


surface streaked with gold by the boats’ keels; around the city a heavy belt of trees ; 
beyond the trees a belt of plains and cultivated fields, terminated by the blue out- 
lines of the Taunus. While I lingered, dreaming I know not what, and leaning 
against the unfinished tower of 1509, clouds came up and began to fly across the 
sky, as the wind drove them, leaving great rifts through which showed the blue, and 
throwing great patches of shadow upon the landscape below me. ‘This picture was 
also charming: a landscape is never more beautiful than when it puts on its tiger- 
skin. I supposed myself alone upon the tower, and I could have remained there all 
day long. Suddenly I heard a little noise. I turned; it was a young girl, perhaps 
fourteen years old, who was leaning out of a little window, and smiling at me. I 
ventured a few steps further, round the corner of the tower, and found myself 
among the dwellers on the roof. It was a gentle and happy little world by itself. 
The child, who was knitting; an older woman, doubtless her mother, at a spinning- 
wheel; doves cooing, perched upon the gargoyles of the tower; a well-disposed mon- 
key, who extended a hospitable paw from out his little house; the weights of the 
great clock rising and falling with a dull sound; above all, that peace which reigns 
in all high places, which is made up of sunshine, of the murmur of the wind, and 
of the beauty of the picture,— was it not a pure and charming scene? And this 
was the top of the cathedral tower in Frankfort. How came this little colony here, 
and what were they doing? I know not, but it pleased me to see them. This 
haughty, imperial city, which has endured the shock of so many wars, which has 
received so many bullets, which has enthroned so many Czesars, whose walls were like 
a coat of mail, whose eagle held in its claws the crowns which the Austrian eagle 
wears on its two heads, is to-day surmounted and crowned by a poor widow’s humble 
fire, sending up its little thread of bluish smoke.” 

And now we come to the very Paradise of the Rhine, the enchanting region 
commencing at Mayence and ending just below Riidesheim, which is called in Ger- 
man the Rheingau. The scenery here has no affinity to river scenery; it is rather 
that of a succession of lakes, each differing from the rest, yet all bearing a general 
resemblance, as might be the case in a series of family portraits. 

The Rheingau is the very vineyard of Germany; the cultivation of the grape 
has spread itself over every rood of ground in this favored region. Rocky slopes 
and crests, precipices where one can hardly stand, haye been broken up, dug over, 
and fertilized. In fault of arable soil, the soft, friable rock has been pulverized. Far 
out of sight the vines extend their regular ranks, and all the hill-sides bristle with 
them. Against this sheet of verdure are detached, at intervals, great Italian villas, 
with flat roofs and square walls, the summer homes of the wealthy wine merchants 
of Mayence or Frankfort; flags bearing the national colors fly from these roofs, i- 


dicating, as in a royal palace, when the owner is “in residence.” But rarely or never 


al 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 441 


too precious to waste it in flowers or ornamental trees. All that an oak or a larch 


9 \ 


ean do is to furnish a little shade from the sun; but every foot of land used for a 


_ vineyard is covered, in the autumn, with pieces of gold. At the foot of the terrace, 


an elegantly decorated skiff lies balancing on the waves. To have a villa in the 


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Rheingau and a boat on the Rhine, express the sum of human prosperity in this 


* The old town of Riidesheim (see illustration above) is one of the most famous 
Tradition ascribes the first planting of its vineyards to Charlemagne, 


who remarked that the snow disappeared earlier from the heights behind the town 


than from other regions in the neighborhood, and ordered vines to be brought from 


¥ Burgundy and Orleans. 


The Brémserburg, close on the bank of the river, is the 


442 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


great show-place of the town, — an old robber-castle, founded in the thirteenth century, 
and still in good preservation. 

A few miles further down the river, on the left bank, stands Bacharach (see 
page 443), one of the most picturesque and quaint of all the old towns of Ger- 
many. Bacharach takes its name from the old Roman designation, the Altar of Bac- 
chus (Bacchi ara), and this well suits its character. 

You would say, remarks Victor Hugo, that some giant, who was a dealer in 
bric-a-brac, wishing to establish himself in business here, had taken a hill-side for 
his show-case, and spread out his curiosities from base to summit. In truth he 
begins under the very waters of the Rhine; for there, just beneath the surface, lies 
a volcanic rock, according to some authorities; a Celtic pulven, according to others; 
a Roman altar, in the opinion of a few. Next, on the river-bank are some old, 
worm-eaten hulls of vessels, cut in two and planted in the ground, so as to make 
decent cabins for fishermen. ‘Then, behind these cabins, we come to a portion of the 
city wall, which once was crenellated, flanked by four square towers, the most ruin- 
ous and shot-battered that ever human eyes beheld. ‘Then, against the wall itself, in 
which are pierced windows and galleries for them, a curious medley of houses, with 
fantastic turrets, preposterous facades, impossible gables, — heavy beams designing deli- 
cate arabesques on the outside of some of these edifices, chimneys in the shape of 
tiaras and crowns (philosophically full of smoke!) extravagant weathercocks that are 
not weathercocks at all, but Gothic letters out of old manuscripts! 

Amid all this confusion, an open space with accidental boundaries, and contain- 
ing more bays, islets, reefs, and promontories than.a Norwegian gulf. On one side 
of it, two masses of Gothic structures, overhanging, leaning sideways, holding their 
ground in defiance of all geometry and equilibrium. Opposite, a rare and beautiful 
Byzantine church, with handsome gate and lofty belfry; around the apse a gallery of 
little arches, with colonnettes of black marble, crowded with tombs in the style of the 
Renaissance. Beyond this church, the ruins of another, in red sandstone, window- 
less, roofless, doorless, a superb skeleton, outlined against the sky. Lastly, for crown 
upon the hill-top, the old Castle of Stahleck, the ancient residence of the counts-pala- 
tine. All this is Bacharach. 

And the old fairy-village, full of story and legend, is occupied by a picturesque 
population, who have, every one of them, old and young, babies and grandfathers, 
deformed and pretty,—in look, in profile, and in attitude, — some quaint suggestion, 
some imperative reminder of that thirteenth century to which their town belongs. 

The Rhine roars superbly around Bacharach. He seems to love his old city, and 
to guard it well; and nothing is more enchanting than Bacharach in the sunshine. 
All the decrepit, withered fagades grow young and beautiful. The turrets and weather- 


cocks cast grotesque shadows everywhere. Flowers and women are in all the win- 


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SCENES IN MANY LANDS. , 443 


dows, and in every doorway some pleasing group of children and old men _ basking 
in the sun. 

Below Bacharach appears the Pfalz, or Pfalzgrafenstein, rising out of the river, 
and likened by some traveller’s quaint fancy to a stone ship at anchor forever in 
the Rhine. It is a small pentagonal building, built by Louis the Bavarian as a con- 


venient tol] house for waylaying passing vessels, and exacting tribute from them. In 


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Bacharach. 


the narrow courtyard is a well sunk far below the bed of the Khine, and the castle 
itself is accessible only by means of a ladder. 

To this little island, long before the castle was built, Louis the Debonnaire, the 
unlucky son of Charlemagne, was borne by his own request, as he felt death 
approaching. “It was spring-time, past Whitsuntide,” says Palgrave. “Uneasy and 


seeking rest, the sick man fancied that he would pass the summer upon the island 


444 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


a 
which, dividing the eee Rhine, is now covered by the picturesque & tower 


in the field: lying on his couch, he longed for the soothing music of the gurgling 
waters and the freshness of the waving wind. Thither was he conyeyed from Frank 
fort-on-the-Main, his bark floating down from stream to stream. Many of the clergy 
were in attendance; among others, his brother, Archbishop Drogo, who received the 
last injunctions which the son of Charlemagne had to impart. He died on the third 
Sunday in June.” . { 

On the bank lies the little town of Kaub, with its slate quarries underground; 


and behind the town rise the heights, crowned by the Castle of Gutenfels. It owes, 


————EEE————————lot 


1807, and the building once into a ruin. In 1814, from these he Blacher 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 445 


represented in the steel engraving facing page 442, and there represented in its early 
and picturesque condition as a ruin; for the modern restoration made by the late 
king of Prussia, Frederick William IV., at an expense of nearly three hundred thou- 
sand dollars, is, from the artist’s point of view, a change profoundly to be regretted. 
The exterior is covered with a great fresco, now already half effaced by the weather; 
while the interior, richly decorated, satisfies curiosity rather than taste. 

But the old Stolzenfels, the “Castle of the Proud Rock,” as its name _ signifies, 
was the stateliest ruin of the Rhine. Its legends are many; chief among them, 
however, is that of the ancient alchemists whom the archbishop lodged there, between 
13888 and 1418, and who wrought day and night to win that secret of making gold 
from reluctant Nature, who, giving up so many: of her cherished treasures to the 
research of man, still holds back this one which has been so eagerly and so long 
sought from her. 

And now we come to Coblentz (see engraving facing page 438), standing on the 
triangular point of land formed by the Rhine and the Moselle, where in 13 B. c. 
‘Drusus erected his castle, and where to-day the tourist makes his head-quarters, and 
a whole world of busy traffic hums and bestirs itself, and the drum-beat from the 
Prussian fortifications warns all nations to beware. 

It has been well said by a recent French traveller, and must be apparent to 
every visitor, that Coblentz plays a double 7éle,— in each respect of great importance. 
Seated upon two rivers, the central link of the vast chain whose extremities touch 
Cologne and Mayence, it is the commercial depot for the traffic of a region more 
than ninety miles in diameter. Its bridge of boats opens perpetually to give passage 
to tugs bringing after them long trains of loaded vessels. These all stop at Coblentz, 
to discharge or load, and manifold are the products its trade deals with. From its 
vicinity to the Rhine vineyards it has an immense trade in wine. About a million 
jars of Seltzer and other waters from the duchy of Nassau are shipped annually at 
Coblentz. Corn and the iron of the neighborhood are exported into France. The 
volcanic productions of this country form very peculiar articles of trade ; such is the 
lava itself, used for millstones, and the ashes, for pumice-stone. Potter’s clay, also, from 
the Moselle, bark from the forests, and stoneware out of Westphalia, are much in 
demand in Holland. 

The number of travellers for business or pleasure, who passed through Coblentz 
in the year 1860, was not less than one million, one hundred and _ ninety-five thou- 
sand, two hundred and thirty-six ; of which the immense majority made stay longer 
or shorter in the town. It is only necessary to consider a fact like this, to see what 
vast profit Coblentz must derive from its position. The same situation which gives 
it its commercial prosperity, condemns it, however, to the other réle,— that of a mil- 


itary city. Placed on the river-bank nearest to France, at the mouth of a river 


. 
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~~ 


446 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


French in much of its course, capital of a region which once belonged to Fra i 
and is still coveted by that nation, Coblentz has seen itself imprisoned within a tr 
line of forts and bastions. It is flanked by three fortresses, which command ¥ 
their artillery the roads to Tréves, to Mayence, and to Cologne. Its bridge over t 
Moselle is crenellated like a fort, and detachments of soldiery under arms ae | 
as if it were a besieged town. Lastly, just over the river, a basalt crag four hu 
dred feet high, bears the magnificent citadel, the Gibraltar of the Rhine, Ehren- 


breitstein. 


The architecture of Coblentz offers no great attraction to the traveller. By d 
the finest structure is the stone bridge over the Moselle, shown very accurately in 
the engraving. It was built of blocks of lava, by the Elector Baldwin, in 1344, and 


has all the massive grandeur which characterizes the bridges of that century. a 
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is the meaning of its name, Ehrenbreitstein) does not quite meet one’s expectations. 
It sometimes seems to be nothing but a strange, stern-looking wall, running along 
the summit of the principal rock, leaping across the valley, and making a battle- 
ment upon the sides of the hills beyond. But as you approach, the scene develop s 


before your eyes. Walls rise over walls, ramparts behind ramparts ; flights of steps, 


sunlight from its metal casque. 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. — 447 


A Roman fort was the commencement of these gigantic works; and later, a 
square tower crowned the summit with a cannon-foundry and a powder-magazine. In 
1160 they received their present name; in 1481 the great well was dug through 
‘solid rock, to a point below the river’s eat during the wars of Louis XIV. it was 
“in vain besieged, but fell before the arms of the French Republic in 1799, and was 
blown up after the peace of Luneville. Towers, walls, and rocks that had seemed 
eternal, lay blent in one vast ruin, and only the subterranean vaults, with their mys- 
terious galleries, remained to tell of the great fortress that so long had stood here. 
% But by fitting compensation, her share of the indemnity France paid the allies 
after the close of the war which brought the first Napoleon’s downfall, was expended 
by Prussia in reconstructing the great walls which the French had laid low. © Art 
allied itself to nature; piles of masonry were reared upon the torn and blackened 
‘rock; works rose above works ; and, by degrees, “ Frederick William’s Fort,” as they 
called it then, stood up again like a giant for the defence of Germany. Nor has 
the Prussian government ever neglected its tremendous fortress from that time till 
now, and has spared no pains nor money to keep it in the highest perfection. 

: Escaping from this great temple of war, we find nothing before us but beauty, 
tranquillity, and content. Gardens, orchards, and fields, spread out on both sides of 
the river, and soft outlines of hills rise in the distance. After some miles of this 
‘tranquil scenery the valley grows more varied and picturesque. The river flows in 
a narrower channel, its waters rush more rapidly, and the walls of rock that shut 
them in become loftier and more rugged. Andernach appears in the distance, a quaint, 
interesting old town, situated in a vast amphitheatre of basaltic hills. The church with 
‘its four tall towers, built in the thirteenth century, appears for some time in view 
before the town is reached. 

Like so many other points along the river, Andernach has its Roman antiquities, 
‘but most of the existing fortifications and buildings belong to the fifteenth century. 
“Among these, the most picturesque is the ancient watch-tower seen on the left in the 
engraving facing page 442. On it are carved the armorial bearings of the city. 
The shore of the Rhine in the neighborhood of the Crane Tower (see engray- 
ing facing page 442) abounds with dark-gray mill-stones made of hard porous lava. 
These are obtained from curious basaltic quarries which were known to the Romans. 
They are exported now in considerable quantities to England, Russia, and America. 
The crane attached to the tower’is used for hoisting them on board the vessels 
which are loaded with them. 

, The streets of Andernach are narrow and dull. It is a little town rarely visited, 
yet has much charm of its own in a quiet way. The great ornament of the town 
is its parish church. The two tall towers at the extremity of the nave are pierced 


aul the way up with light Romanesque arches, while in the rest of the building the 


- 


448 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


arches are Byzantine. All the four towers have Byzantine belfries, and furnish a ec 
spicuous landmark in the distance. 

Between Andernach and Bonn there is a countless succession of castles and 
towers, some ruinous, some well repaired, — and each with its legend, or poetic fable, : 
or genuine bit of history attached to it. Let us look at two as we go our way to 
Bonn. | 

First, beautiful Argenfels, or Ahrenfels (see engraving facing page 442), with its 
gilt pinnacles and weathercocks, all in the finest repair, the summer home of Count — 
Westerholt. Next, the old donjon of the Godesburg (see below), surmounting the hill . 
of the same name, and but a little distance from Bonn. The hill itself was anciently 


devoted to the worship of Mercury, some writers assert; others maintain that the 


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Godesburg. 


early structure known to have stood there was an open court of justice, of the 


Bos onmins Pees. ae ‘pepe 3s, 


German tribes. The traditionary account is that a foreign king, with a mighty train 


of followers, arriving in the neighborhood, raised here a temple to the powers of 


darkness, and offered sacrifices of human victims. Through the power of the demons 
he tyrannized over this portion of the Rhine valley, till the coming of a Christian 
priest, who routed him and his imps, and freed the country from the evil influence 
In this fiction is traced the subjugation of this region by Julian the Apostate, wh 


: 


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is known to have had a camp here, and very probably constructed a temple or 
castle of some kind. After the emperor’s departure, the inhabitants, who had bee 
meantime converted to Christianity, erected a chapel dedicated to St. Michael. 


At all events these buildings were in ruins in 1210, and an archbishop of th 


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SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 449 


neighborhood used them in his turn as material for building a castle, which was 
blown up three hundred years later, leaving only the donjon. 

This tower, which is ninety feet high, is a picturesque feature in the landscape, 
but has its special merit as an observatory, commanding a view of the whole range 
of the Siebengebirge, all whose summits are crowned with mouldering castles and 
ruined towers. From this point, too, we look towards the famous High Cross, in the 
environs of Bonn, that famous centre of modern learning. This is a monument of 
Gothic construction, thirty-six feet high, erected, the chronicles of Cologne assert, by 
Archbishop Wolfram of Juliers, with stones brought from the Drachenfels, to com- 


memorate the completion of the choir of the cathedral of that city. Another tradi- 


tion asserts that it was set up by a baron of Hochkirchen, as expiation for a duel. 


And it is also said to have been the ancient market-place of Bonn. But the for- 
mer of these accounts seems to be the most authentic. 

Bonn itself, the last town of importance before we reach Cologne, might tempt 
us with its old cathedral and electoral palace; but having in mind our limitation, we 
will not linger, but follow the broadening river,— whose path is now grown dull in 
comparison with its earlier picturesqueness,—to where a group of towers, masts, and 
walls, seeming to rise out of the water, announce Cologne. 

And now, what shall we say of the great city of the Rhine, by far the largest 
and the most important of the many which grace its shores? A few figures may 
help design the outlines of the picture. 

Cologne has a population of about a hundred and thirty thousand souls. It is 
built in the shape of a crescent and strongly fortified, being enclosed with walls 
about seven miles in circuit. Its garrison consists of seven thousand men. It has 
twenty churches, nineteen gates, thirty-three public squares, and two hundred and 
seventy streets. 

©The destiny of cities,’ says a French author, “is peculiar. A colony of Ubii, 
settled on the right bank of the Rhine, being unable successfully to oppose the in- 
cursions of their predatory neighbors, sought the assistance of Rome. Marcus Agrippa 
proposed to them to cross the river, and opened to them the asylum of the Roman 
camp. This change decided the course of history. The right bank of the river fell 
under the occupation of barbarous tribes, and possessed for ages neither towns nor 
commerce, nor any settled social life: the left touched at every point upon Roman 
Gaul, then in the full flush of civilization. Glance at the map, and you will see 
that nearly all the important cities of the Rhine are on its left bank.” 

A few years later a daughter was born to the Roman general Germanicus, in this 
Ubian camp, or city,— for the words are almost of the same significance applied to the 
rude fortified villages of those times. The child was named Agrippina, —too well 


known in history as the mother of Nero,—and the Ubii paid their general the politic 


ns 
‘ 


450 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


compliment of naming their town after her—Colonia Agrippina. The second word 
vanished in time, and the city of medizval and of modern times remains Colonia, 
or Cologne. 

Who shall tell the long story of war and violence, of siege, of rapine and plun- 
der, which makes the early history of Cologne? In 1212, it had passed through its 
worst storms, and was a leading member of the Hanseatic League, able to put into 
the field and maintain an army of thirty thousand soldiers. During the same cen- 
tury it attained extraordinary commercial privileges, and by the close of the fifteenth 
century had reached the climax of its greatness. At this time the discoveries of Portu- 
guese and Spanish navigators opened new channels to trade, and the same causes that 
destroyed Ratisbon and Augsburg and other trading centres, brought also the down- 
fall of Cologne. The city was ravaged by incessant civil commotions; the Jews were 
cruelly persecuted ; the skilful Protestant weavers banished; at one time seventeen 
hundred looms were burned in the public streets. Finally, as if to complete its 
destruction, the Dutch, in the sixteenth century, closed the navigation of the Rhine, 
which was not opened again till 1837. 

In 1794, Cologne 


French. They held it for twenty years, during which time the convents were secu- 


at that time a free city of the empire — was captured by the 


larized, many churches shut up, and workshops opened for the poor. Then the Peace 
of Paris gave it over to Prussia, and it has since remained a German city, thriving: 
more and more every year, as the steamboat navigation of the Rhine and the numer- 
ous lines of railway centring at Cologne have given new impetus to its industry and 
commerce. 

Can it be called a handsome city? By no means. It has all the disadvan- 
tages of the medieval period, and none of its beauty. “It is muddy, irregular, dark, 
ill laid out, ill-paved. Seen from the river, its aspect is pleasant, but all the fair- 
ness vanishes as you lose yourself in its labyrinthine streets. But it has its Cathe- 
dral, a priceless gem, which, if it were finished, would have no equal in the world. 
The building is discrowned, or rather, it has never had its crown. It has neither 
spire nor towers. What its plan designs may be seen in the illustration on the 
opposite page. On the platform of one of the towers rises the black outline of the 
symbolic derrick which from time immemorial has awaited here the new material that 
never comes. 

Fifty years ago the Cathedral was absolutely in ruins. The Revolution had used 
it for a storehouse of hay and grain. The Empire was no more respectful. At last 
the ravages of time, which were added to those of man, remaining unrepaired for 
centuries, the general decay and dilapidation of the whole building inspired serious 
fears for the solidity of the portion already completed. The roof began to give way. 


A sum of forty thousand francs asked for the restoration of the building was refused 


i 


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% SCENES INV MANY LANDS. 451 


by Napoleon. The French bishop of Aix-la-Chapelle went so far as to congratulate 


the people of Cologne that they possessed so fine a Gothic ruin! 
When, after the events of 1814, Cologne was restored to Germany, a voice was 
raised in behalf of its Cathedral in the Mercure du Rhin, but no one listened to it. 


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The Cathedral of Cologne. 


At last an accident brought men to their senses. The old derrick, which, from the 


top of the tower, had called in vain on generation after generation to complete the 


work of their forefathers, fell to the ground in a storm. The people of the town 


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452 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. =| 


were shocked, and they voted the necessary funds to supply a new one. At this 
time, the same Frederick William IV. who restored Stolzenfels chanced to visit Cologne, 
and he at once conceived the warmest interest in the grand old edifice. During the 
next twenty years about three hundred thousand dollars were furnished from the 
Prussian treasury for the most urgent repairs, and a society was formed for the 
maintenance and completion of the structure. The king promised an annual subscrip- 
tion of fifty thousand dollars, and on the 4th of September, 1842, the second founda- 
tion of the Cathedral was celebrated with imposing ceremonies. From that date .to 
the present the work has steadily advanced, in strict harmony with the original plan. 
The choir and transepts are completed, the inner pillars of the nave have been 
raised to their full height, and strenuous exertions are made to finish the vaulted roof, 
and the great towers which will be about five hundred feet in height. 

The first stone of this Cathedral was laid on the 14th of August, 1248, at a 
depth of fifty-five feet. In 1322 the choir was consecrated, and in 1487 the south 
tower had been raised to its present height; but the work, carried on with difficulty 
during two centuries and a half, ceased completely in 1509. 

Not merely neglected, the Cathedral in the eighteenth century was shamefully 
mutilated by the ignorant canons who then composed the chapter. For its beautiful 
altar, a kind of Greek pavilion was substituted ; its four bronze angels were trans- 
formed into rococo candelabra; the stone choir screen was demolished to give place 
to an iron railing ; common glass was substituted for the exquisite painted windows, 


which, the canons thought, made the interior too dark; and finally, the sacrament- 


house, a very beautiful piece of carving, was broken to pieces and cast into the | 


Rhine. 
The famous tomb of the Three Magi is the most venerated of the many sep- 


ulchres contained within the Cathedral. It is a large case, so to speak, made of vari- 


ous colored marbles, enclosed in heavy copper gratings, in which three turbans, mingled — 


with the other designs, strike the eye, an odd reminder that these wise men came 
from the East. Three copper lamps, always burning, bear the names of the three 
kings — Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar; and the same names, written in rubies, 
sparkle from the shrine. 

As in Mayence, there are here a great multitude of archiepiscopal tombs, among 
others that of the worthy Archbishop Conrad, who, “finding himself superabundantly 
rich in gold, silver, and precious stones, and deeming his treasure inexhaustible, 
undertook,” says. the Cologne Chronicle for 1499, “the construction of the Cathedral, 
of this immense and costly edifice, on which we are laboring at the present moment.” 

One other church in Cologne must be visited that we may have a correct idea 
of its religious life; this is the old Byzantine church of St. Martin, whose round 


arched windows are less poetic than the Gothic arch, but have their own grave dig- 


re a 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 453 


nity and solemnity. One should visit this church on a market-day, when the peas- 
‘ant women of the neighborhood leave their fruits and vegetables, and come in to hear 
“mass. In their absorbed devotion, no less earnest because so awkward, we get a 
picture like some old wood-carving or some quaint old German engraving. The 
Cathedral belongs to kings and bishops, but St. Martin’s is the beloved church of 


the poor; and the two will represent the old Catholic city of the Rhine. 


h 


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St. Martin’s Church. 


: “JT had the singular good fortune to arrive in Cologne on a feast-day,” says 
Gérard de Nerval, in his Souvenirs d’ Allemagne. “'The city was filled with merry- 
making. It was the August festival of the Virgin, and all the Catholic quarters — 
which form the principal part of the city—were gay with banners floating in the 
wind, earlands in all the windows, oak-boughs strewn thickly in the streets. Trium- 


phal processions were on their way to all the churches, and especially towards the 


454 VOYAGES: AND TRAVELS. 


Cathedral, where, in the completed apse, worship is celebrated, while the transept is 
still encumbered with scaffoldings and building-materials.” \ | 

The famous Marie de’ Medici, who died in solitude and poverty here in Cologne, 
is buried under the pavement of the Cathedral, and furnishes a text to many moral- 
izers. “I went to see the slab that covers her heart,” says one of this fratenntan | 
“While I looked, a poor match-girl entered the church, set down her sulphurous bas- 
ket on the heart of Marie de’ Medici, said a prayer or two, and went out absolved, 
The interior was thronged with Christ’s poor. The scene was a rare one. I looked 
around me in the golden altar-lights. I thought I was in a forest,—a forest at 
sunset. ‘The choir was almost filled with rising incense touched with the yellow flare 
of the tapers, and it seemed through the columns like a vista into the clouds. The 
grand stems of the arcades rose thickly crowded, only they fell into a natural order 
and alignment like the trunks of pines; overhead they rolled to meet each other, 
breaking out everywhere into stiff, thickset needles and tufts of Gothic work. But 
this forest was not a solitude; it was crowded with speechless figures thick as 


thoughts. And it was not silent or simply whisper-haunted like the real woods. 


windows to rock in the Jove-like storm. The beauty of the Cathedral is that it is 
not finished. A Gothic church ought ever to be growing like the branching laces 
of the forest. If a day should come when we could say it is done, why then we > 
should seem to say, it is dead.” 3 

Beyond Cologne there is still a river Rhine, — but what is it? It is a broad 
canal, as dull as all canals are, and has even the further disadvantage that high | 
dikes have been built along each side to protect the country from dangerous inun-— 
dations. Its exit into the sea is facilitated by means of floodgates, opened by 
machinery at ebb-tide, and closed when the tide returns. It is a stupendous piece 
of engineering, but hardly belongs to the department of the picturesque, and so, for 


us, the Rhine journey shall end at Cologne. 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 455 


ERHAPS no country in the world offers to the lover of the picturesque a more 
enchanting variety of natural loveliness and architectural grandeur than does the 
favored land now under consideration. It is a very embarras de richesses, and since 
some selection must be made, we find ourselves almost at a loss to know what to 
describe and what to omit. 


Two thoughts, however, have guided us, and two aims have presented themselves 


? 


456 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


much variety as possible in the pictures we present to them, so that, in some de- 
gree, we may exhibit the multiform scenes and objects of interest which make Great : 
Britain so attractive both to the lover of nature and the student of art. F 

Following out these ideas, we shall begin with the south shore of England, — © 
the sea-coast of Devon and the county of Cornwall,—a region remarkable for its 
wild scenery and its inexhaustible metallic treasures, interesting also as being the 
earliest part of England known to the civilized nations of antiquity.” The rugged 
coasts are composed mainly of the older rocks ; igneous action is everywhere mani- 


fested, and in many places the strata are twisted and contorted in a manner defying 


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all description. The variety of climate in these counties is also remarkable; shel-— 


fe 
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tered nooks on the south coast enjoying a mild and equable temperature, in whieh 
the myrtle, geranium, fuchsia, hydrangea, and other exotics grow all the year round — 


. : . ° e,e : = | 
in the open air, while wide moors of more elevated position are so swept by the 

a 
Atlantic storms that even the hardiest trees can scarcely maintain a stunted existe | 
‘ 


ence. ‘The extreme fury of these gales would scarcely be believed by the stranger 


till he observes that even the tombstones in the churchyards are supported by masonry 
as a protection against the wind. “The gale from the west,” says a Cornish author, 
“is here no gentle zephyr: instead of wafting perfume on its wings, it often brin | 
devastation.” ‘The salt of the sea is often borne across the country by the tempest, 
and after heavy winds produces a noticeable effect upon vegetation. Rain is also 
extremely frequent, as is shown in the popular Cornish adage that the supply for — 


the county is “a shower every week-day and two on Sundays.” 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 457 


One of the finest situations on the Devon sea-coast is Teignmouth (see opposite 


page), the home of W. M. Praed, the poet, and now one of the finest of the sum- 
mer watering-places in the county. 

A few miles south lies Dartmouth (see below), an extremely old town, of great 
‘interest to the traveller. It is built in terraces on the shore of a beautiful land- 
Jocked harbor opening to the sea by a narrow channel, and encompassed by steeply- 
shelving rocks. In the time of Edward III. it was a port of so much consequence 
‘that it furnished thirty-one ships to the fleet which was to besiege Calais. At a 
more recent period it was from Dartmouth that the adventurers set forth who first 
visited Newfoundland and established its important fisheries. Sir Humphrey Gilbert 


was born near here, and Davis, the bold seaman who discovered the Straits to which 


Dartmouth. 


he gave his name. At a still earlier date (1190) Dartmouth harbor was the place 
of rendezvous where Richard Cceur-de-Lion gathered his crusading fleet; while many 
old towers and forts on the shore or on the heights of Dartmouth tell of the civil wars 
of England in which the town bore a part. 

At the extreme point of the promontory on the left, which bounds the entrance 
to the harbor, stands Dartmouth Castle, mounting guard at the very edge of a shely- 
ing rock of glossy slate, its base washed by the sea at high tide. It consists of a 
square and a round tower, the latter now serving as a magazine, but formerly used to 
receive the iron chain which was stretched as a defence across the harbor to the rock 
on the opposite side, where a groove is yet visible, evidently scooped out to receive 
the chain. 

The most important of the seaport towns of Devon is, however, Plymouth, which, 
with its sister towns, Stonehouse and Devonport, forms both a great focus of trade and 
a war-station of the first importance. Its history runs back to the time of Henry II. 
From this port, Drake, Raleigh, and Cavendish sailed to find fame —if not fortune —in a 
new world ; from this, the last spot of English ground their feet had trodden, the Pilgrim 


458 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


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the morning, would come out 


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Plymouth. 


Fathers named the colony they founded b 


yond the seas; Captain Cook sailed fro 4 i 
Plymouth in 1768, and again in 1772. Tn 


1861 the three towns had a joint population 
of about one hundred and twenty-eight thou- 
sand inhabitants, which has no doubt con- 


siderably increased since that time. 


Plymouth Hoe (the rising ground coy-_ 


ered with buildings at the right in the 


illustration) is one of the most beautiful 
promenades in the kingdom. It is a high 
ridge of land constituting the sea-front of 
Plymouth. The view from it is of great 
variety and beauty, and the traveller, as he 
looks across the level waters of the open 


ocean, is interested to remember heroes of 


the past who have also made Plymouth 


Hoe a look-out. ‘This was the point of the 


English coast whence the Armada was first 


discerned, and tradition asserts that Sir 


Francis Drake and the other captains were 


playing bowls here when the news of the 


great fleet’s approach was brought to them, 


in memory whereof it was long the custom 


for the mayor and corporation of Plymouth, — 


on the anniversary of that day, to wear — 


their scarlet, and to entertain their visitors 
with cake and wine. 

- From this terrace it was that Smeaton, 
in 1758 and later, used to watch for the 


safety of his light-house built on the Hddy- — 


stone rock, fourteen miles out to sea. “ After 
a rough night,” says Smiles, “his sole 
thovght was of his light-house. There were 
many who still persisted in asserting that 
no building erected of stone could possibly 
stand upon the Hddystone ; and again and 


again the engineer, in the dim gray of 


d peer through his telescope at his deep-sea lamp-— 


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SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 459 


post. Sometimes he had to wait long until he could see a tall white pillar of spray 
shoot up into the air. Thank God, it was still safe! Then, as the light grew, he 
could discern his building, temporary house and all, standing firm amid the waters; 
and thus far satisfied, he could proceed to his workshops, his mind relieved for the 
day.” 

Besides the Eddystone light, the observer who looks off across the Sound to the 
open sea will observe another light-house, at a point much nearer to his eye. And by 
daylight this will be man.fested to have its position at the extremity of a great stone 
bar lying across the opening of the Sound, the famous Plymouth breakwater built 
1812-1845, at a cost of a million and a half pounds sterling. The entire length of 
this breakwater is about a mile ; its width at base varies from three hundred to four 
hundred feet, diminishing to fifty at its top; and its total depth varies, with the 
irregularity of the level on which it rests, from forty to eighty feet. 

The plan on which it was built was of the simplest: being neither more nor 
less than the casting of rubble, or rough blocks of stone of weight from two to ten 
tons, mixed with smaller materials, into the sea, along a line determined by the ex- 
istence of a string of shoals, with a view to raising these shoals to a height  suffi- 
cient to resist and break the force of the incoming waves. Nothing could be done 
in the arrangement of these masses ; they were to be left to the action of the water 
itself, which would inevitably arrange them in the position best calculated to offer 
lasting resistance to the violence of the sea. A promontory of compact, close-grained 
limestone, belonging to the Duke of Bedford and situated at the north-east corner 
‘of the Sound, was purchased for ten thousand pounds, quarries opened, rails laid, 
wharyes built, and a flotilla of ten vessels of cighty tons burden provided. The 
loaded vessel, arriving over the line of the breakwater, opened a_ trap-door, and 
dumped its contents into the sea, leaving the stones to settle as best they might. 
After seven months, the work made its appearance above the low-water level; at the 
end of a year laborers were employed on it, and soon after the original plan was 
modified, and it was determined to raise the whole structure to the level of two feet 
above high-water mark, to strengthen the sea-slope by dovetailed courses of granite, 
to pave the top, and finally, to erect the light-house with its circular tower rising 
seventy-one feet above high-water mark, whence shines a red light towards the north, 
and a white light towards the south. 

In the illustration representing Devonport (page 460) will be remarked on the 
left a broad sheet of water, extending back as far as Saltash, whose houses are 
faintly discernible, a low line along the foot of a hill. This land-locked sheet is the 
Hamoaze, where English vessels of war lie “in ordinary,” —a curious technicality, which 
indicates a ‘laid aside till wanted” condition. To enter upon this condition implies 


that guns and ammunition are remoyed, top-masts, sails, and rigging taken off, the 


460 


Devonport. 


charge of a single officer and a handful 
of men, who live on board. The appear- 
ance of these ships is odd enough; their 
lightened condition bringing them far up 
out of water, and their long ranges of 
empty port-holes looming grimly, like the | 
windows of a deserted house. oy 

The towns of Devonport, Stonehouse, 
and’ Plymouth owe their importance almost — 
entirely to the government buildings they 
contain, and when dock-yards and arsenals” 
and victualling yards and _ barracks have 
been enumerated, the tale is nearly told. — 
Devonport is a sort of promontory pro- 
jecting westward from Plymouth, and hay-— 
ing water nearly two thirds around i 


The column rising in the centre of the 


town is a fluted Doric pillar, a hundred — 


three thousand people, and covering 
extent of ninety-six acres of ground. 
On the left, in the illustration repre=— 


senting Plymouth, are seen the enormous 


Barracks. As for Plymouth itself, it pre-_ 
sents only a mass of crooked streets and — 
a few public buildings of importance, ti 


we come to the citadel, which has already — 


of the town. 


re 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 461 


Sixteen miles north of Plymouth is Tavistock (see below) on the little river Tavy, 
a branch of the Tamar, the boundary between Devon and Cornwall. The Power lies in 
a trough of the hills and is the centre of a mining district whose operations are carried 
‘on close up to its houses, while a couple of large iron foundries add to the local in- 
dustry. The early importance of the town was due to a magnificent Benedictine 
abbey, founded a century before the Norman Conquest, by a Saxon earl, or “Hal- 
dorman,” of Devonshire, whose wealth was so great that he ruled the country far 
and wide. This abbey, still in its highest splendor, was broken up by Henry VIL, 
and its revenues conferred upon Lord John Russell, whose descendant, the Duke of 


Bedford, is the present owner of the site. What remains of the ancient buildings is 


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TNT 
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Tavistock. 


but little, yet serves to show how extensive was the early structure. Overgrown with 
ivy, and crowded close by modern dwellings, the ancient gateway, the little tower, 
the pinnacled porch have an effect at once pathetic and picturesque. 

Of later date is the ereat church of St. Eustache, whose tower is shown in our 
picture. At its base this tower is pierced by arches on all four sides, so that it is 
really separated from the building, and is a campanile. 

Returning to Plymouth, we give a last look at Devon, and, crossing the Tamar, 


are in Cornwall, “the land of Pol, and Tre, and Pen.” And first is Fowey, the old 


sii 


462 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


seaport, which once ranked with Plymouth and Dartmouth. The harbor is still famous 
as one of the best in the county, admitting vessels of large size at all times of 
the tide. On each shore are the ruins of square forts built in the time of Edward 
IV., which once supported the ends of the great chain that barred the harbor. On 
the cliffs, high above the water (see illustration below), are the ruins of St. Cath- 
erine’s Fort, erected by the townspeople in the reign of Henry VIII.; and on the 
left is a windmill, referred to in chronicles of 1296 as a well-known sea-mark, built, 
it is believed, by some returned crusader, the use of windmills being, as is well 
known, introduced into Hngland from Palestine. 

Five miles inland from Fowey runs the Cornwall railway, on its road from Ply- 
mouth to Truro, and then the West Cornwall road goes on to Penzance, within ten 
miles of Land’s End. This road was one of Brunel’s great engineering exploits, and 
the completion of sixty miles of it occupied twelve long years. It required seven 


tunnels and forty-three viaducts, the most important of these being the Albert Bridge, 


Fowey. 


which crosses the mouth of the Tamar at a place where it is a quarter of a mile 
wide, —too great a space to be spanned at one bound,— and where the water in 
the mid stream is seventy feet in depth. It would be interesting to describe this 
bridge, which is three hundred feet longer than the famous one over the Menai Straits, 
and is in many respects more remarkable, though much less renowned, than Stephen- 
son’s: but we must not linger on our way to Truro, the little town which is con- 
sidered the metropolis of Cornwall, and, lying in its charming valley at the junction 
of two streams with an arm of the sea, presents one of the most attractive pictures 
in the county. * 

In the neighborhood of Truro are the ruins of St. Piran’s Church, perhaps the 
oldest Christian edifice in England, built, it is believed, in the fifth century, sub- 
merged by sand about three hundred years later, and revealed by the sand again 
shifting in 1835. Nothing can be imagined more primitive than this little structure, 


which is but twenty-nine feet long and sixteen and a half in breadth. The maso 


* 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 463 


is of the rudest description, and affords a striking proof of the antiquity of the church. 
No lime has been used by the builder, but china-clay—a product of the neighbor- 
hood — and sand employed instead; and in this the stones are imbedded without re- 
gard to order, consisting of blocks of slate and granite, some rough, others rounded 
like big pebbles. ‘The invasion of the sand is a peculiarity of this part of the Cornish 
coast, and has desolated it for miles, sometimes with an accumulation of several feet 
in a single night. 

The railway, whose viaduct is seen in the foreground of the illustration given 


here, is a short branch of the Cornwall, leading from Truro to Falmouth, and com- 


Truro. 


ing out near Pendennis Castle, the famous old fort which is seen (page 464) crowning 
the hillock in the centre of the picture. Falmouth itself is but a little town of about 
six thousand inhabitants, consisting mainly of a long narrow street, straggling along 
the water’s edge, but its surroundings give it great distinction. The winding shores 
of its harbor are well known to the landscape-painter, and the haven itself “is very 
notable and famous,” says Leland; while Carew asserts that “a hundred sail of vessels 
may anchor in it, and not one see the masts of another.” Its entrance, defended by 
Pendennis Castle on the one side and St. Mawes on the other, is about a mile wide, 
and within, the harbor expands into a broad smooth basin, extending inland four 


miles to the mouth of the Truro River. 


ha 


464. VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. — 


An interesting association connects Fal 
mouth with Sir Walter Raleigh, — in facet, 


% 


the town may be said to owe its existence 


to the great navigator. On his return from. 
Guiana Sir Walter visited the harbor, and 


found but one solitary house, in addition to 


an ancient manor of the Killigrew family, 


standing on the site of the present town. 


Filled with admiration at the advantages of 


this remarkable estuary, he represented its 


importance to the queen and her council, 


and a settlement was at once made there, 


which, after being known first as Smithike, | 


and then as Penny-come-quick (evidently a 


corruption of the Cornish words Pen, Combe, 


and Ick), in 1660 received, by royal procla- 


mation, its name of Falmouth, and the fol- 


lowing year was invested by charter with 


the rights and dignities of a corporate town. 


Pendennis Castle, however, is of older 
date, being built in the time of Henry VIIL., 


and having enjoyed the distinction of stand- 


Falmouth. 


ing out for King Charles longer than any 


other fort in England. 


South of Falmouth, and nearly cut off 


from the mainland by the little river Helford, 


is the district of the Lizard, sometimes called. 
the Cornish Chersonese. Its greatest length 


and breadth does not exceed ten miles each 


way, and the promontory narrows at last. 


to a sharp tip known as Lizard. Point, 


the most southerly point of England. The 


geologic peculiarity of this region is the 


presence of a large area of serpentine, a 


i 
rare and beautiful rock, dark-green, reddish, 


and streaked, suggestive of a lizard’s skin, 


and probably giving, by this appearance, the 


AS ‘il Me = name to the district and the cape. It makes 


a barren soil, but one favorabie to the growth of the Hrica vagans, the rarest an M 


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ADC MOD 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 465 


most beautiful of the English heaths. It is a singular fact that this heath grows 


nowhere else but in a small region on the west coast of Portugal; and the same 


is true of the Sibthorpia Huropea, another Cornish plant of the moneywort family. 


The Lizard serpentine is used in the construction of cottages in all the region 
where it abounds, and has also, of late years, become quite an article of trade, families 
of stone-cutters and lapidaries having established themselves in all directions, and con- 
verted into a thousand elegant trifles this really beautiful and curious rock. Vases 
and cups, paper-weights, even bracelets and small ornaments, are made of it and 
offered for sale to tourists, and have made fine show at all the successive Expositions, 
ever since that of 1862 in London. 

On the rocky headland of Lizard Point the traveller will first observe the two tall 
lighthouses, marking this generally the first land made by ships upon entering the 


Lizard Point. 


Channel. These beacons display two lights, to distinguish them from the one light 
of Scilly and the three of Guernsey. 

Two miles west of the point is the famous Kynance Cove (see page 466), one 
of the wonders of the Cornish coast. A steep descent leads down to the shore, 
among wild rocks that are grouped as if by a painter’s hand, and with their dark 
and varied colors contrast exquisitely with the light tints of the sandy beach and the 
changeful azure of the sea. The predominant color of the serpentine is an olive 
green, diversified by veins of red and purple, while the rocks are incrusted with yellow 
lichen and cut by seams of dull white steatite. The ragged rocks are pierced by 
caverns which the waves have worn down to the smoothest polish, and the beach 
is strewn with pebbles, which, when they are wet, have almost the brilliancy of the 


precious stones. In the centre of the cove rises a pyramidal rocky mass, insulated 


466 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


at high water, and known as Asparagus Island, from the wild luxuriance of that 
useful plant. This rock is pierced by a deep chasm, from which, at certain states 
of the tide, a column of water is violently projected high into the air. Three of 
the largest caverns on the mainland are named the Parlor, the Dining-Room, and the 
Kitchen, and every point has its legend and its superstition. 

Between Lizard Point and Land’s End the coast is indented with a wide bay, 
at whose head sits enthroned Penzance, the “Holy Headland,” the sanitarium of the 
south coast, whose climate is so equable, that while in summer its average heat does 
not exceed 61 Fahrenheit, in midwinter its gardens are full of geraniums, migno-« 


nette, verbenas, carnations, and roses, all in bloom. 


Kynance Cove. 


Penzance (see opposite page) is a clean and handsome town, laid out with 
regularity. The quays along the sea form an enchanting promenade, and it has a 
background of gardens rising behind it to the summit of the hill. Its principal pub- 
lic buildings are the Town Hall, a granite structure with a dome, and St. Paul’s 
Chapel, also of granite, built in 1835. But the antiquities of Penzance are its people. 
They are all that remain in England of the ancient Celtic family which once peopled it. 
their type distinctly joming to the Celtic or Breton race, with its dark hair, gray 


eyes, and dark, colorless complexion. Until within a century, the Cornish language, 


PENZANCE, 


468 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


which belongs to the Cymric division of the Celtic, was yet spoken among the fisher- 
women of Penzance, and now lingers everywhere in the names of lake, and hill, and 
town, with their Cornish prefixes, Pol, Pen, and Tre. 

The mild climate of Penzance renders it not only the flower-garden, but also 
the vegetable-garden of the south coast, and its early potatoes and cauliflower, and 
other edibles of this sort, are in great demand in the large cities. Its fisheries, 
however, furnish its chief’ revenue, and are carried on upon an immense scale. The 
Cornish fisherman pursues his work all the year round, with drift-net, seine, and 
hook and line: mackerel and pilchards are the objects of the first method of pur- 
suit; pilchards alone of the second; and hake, cod, and whiting of the third. About 
the end of January comes the early mackerel fishing; late in July comes the sum- 
mer pilchard season; in October is the autumnal mackerel fishing, and from that 
time till December, the winter pursuit of the pilchard. Between whiles the Cornish- 
man goes over to Ireland after herring, or follows the retreating shoals down the 
Channel. 

Of these fisheries, that for the pilchard is most entertaining to the stranger. It 
is a very small fish, much like the herring, and comes in such shoals as actually 
to impede the passage of vessels, and discolor ‘the water as far as the eye can reach. 
The sight of this countless fish army coming upon the coast is one of the most 
interesting and remarkable that can be imagined. In a single day twelve million of 
them have been captured, and their number not perceptibly reduced. The drift-net 
fishing is pursued by night at a distance of some miles from land. The method 
adopted is to stretch a string of nets like a wall through the sea, for the length 
of half or three quarters of a mile, and a depth of thirty feet, and allow them to 
drift with the tide, so intercepting the pilchards as they swim, and entangling them 
by the gills. In this way a single boat will take fifty thousand fish in a night. The 
chief obstacles to this mode of fishing are the moonlight and the phosphorescence 
of the water. The latter sometimes enables the fisherman to see his net to its full 
extent, like a brilliant lacework of fire, and shows it, too, to the fish, which, alarmed 
by the light, diverge to right and left, and escape the snare. 

When brought to land, the fish are taken in charge by girls and women, cured, 
cleansed, packed, squeezed to obtain their oil, then headed up in hogsheads and ex- 
ported to Naples and other Italian and Spanish ports, where they furnish a large 
part of the food of the poorer classes. These fishwomen make a class by themselves 
‘in Penzance, and have their stalls under the Town Hall. In 1861 the mistress of 
these fishwomen, then eighty-four years old, went on foot to London, where she was 
presented to the queen. 

Nearly due east from Penzance, across the bay, lies St. Michael’s Mount (see 


opposite page), connected with the mainland by a causeway four hundred yards long, 


“LNNOW S°‘IAVHOIW ‘LS 


470 _ VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


4 


which lies under water eight hours out of the twelve. Crossing at low tide, the 
traveller will find himself in a little fishing village with a good harbor, whence leads 
up a rocky path to the castle, a hundred and _ ninety-five feet above the sea-level. 
This rock of St. Michael’s has excited more controversy among geologists than any 
mountain in the world, and before going on to speak of its historic interest it is 
worth ‘while to remark on this peculiarity of formation. The body of the rock is 
granite, and its northern base is slate, while the granite has many vertical seams, 
which are filled in with quartz, oxides of tin, schorl, and other minerals. On the 
northwestern side, at the water’s edge, two irregular patches of granite are bedded 
in the slate, and on the south-east, veins of quartz traverse both slate and granite. 
It was long believed that the contemporaneous origin of these formations could alone 
explain these facts; but it is now regarded as settled that, first, the granite in a 
melted condition was forced through the slate, and overran upon it in places; and, 
second, that both granite and slate in cooling, cracked, and the fissures in both were 
filled up at the same time. 

But, except to the geologist, the great charm of St. Michael’s Mount is its won- 
derful beauty of situation, and all the old historic and poetic interest that clings 


about it. This is Milton’s “great vision of the guarded mount,” which 


“ Looks toward Namancos and Bayonna’s hold,” 


and its kinship with St. Michael’s Mount in Normandy, represented on page 219, Vol. 
I. of this work, is strangely poetic and interesting. 

Its old Cornish name signified “The Gray Rock in the Wood,” and seems to 
favor a tradition that at an early period the mount was covered with a forest, and 
situated at some distance inland. Hdward the Confessor, seeing in it a sort of minia- 
gure of St. Michael’s across the channel, made a gift of it to the Norman monastery, 
the great Benedictine House of St. Michael, “in periculo maris.” Both mounts were 
fortresses as well as religious houses, and contained garrisons as well as conyents; 
and to both appertain traditions of extensive lands and forests submerged by the 
sea. The Cornish castle has been the scene of many attacks, and, more than once, 
has been taken by strategy; its last appearance in history is during the Parliamen- 
tary wars, when it was reduced by Colonel Hammond, one of Cromwell’s officers. 

What now remains of the old castle is chiefly the hall and the chapel. The 
former was the refectory of the monks, and has at the upper end of the room the 
royal escutcheon and the date, 1660. The chapel has a fine tower, the most ancient 
portion of the building and the loftiest. Its summit is two hundred and fifty feet 
above the sands, and the lantern surmounting it is popularly called St. Michael’s Chair, 


since it will just allow space for one person to sit down in it. The Cornish legend 


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SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 471 


Mi which attaches to the Well of St. Keyne, and is made familiar to every school-boy 

: by Southey’s poem, is also told of this lantern, and many a fair married traveller, 
it is said, will venture upon the somewhat perilous feat, in the hope of securing 
that domestic sovereignty so dearly prized by either sex. 


_ From Penzance, along the coast to Land’s End, are wonderful formations in granite, 


—eaverns, Druidic monuments, and ever the grand ocean views which give such 
majesty to the scene. About half-way to Land’s End is what is called a cliff castle 
sot great renown, and of antiquity impossible to determine. It is a headland of granite, 
shaggy with a kind of moss, and weathered into rhomboidal masses, marked in many 
‘places with the vivid colors of porphyritic rock. The headland is isolated by an 
intrenchment of earth and stones, forming a triple line of defence about fifteen feet 


high at its outer edge, faced with stones, and having an entrance marked with 
: 


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Logan Rock. 


granite posts. Very many of the Cornish headlands are thus fortified, but a pecu- 
‘liar interest is attached to this one, T'reryn Castle, because it contains the famous 
Logan Stone, a great rock thirty feet in circumference, so delicately poised that a 
touch will make it vibrate, but so firm that it was the country’s boast that no power 
could dislodge it from its place. Until about fifty years since this vaunt had never 


been discredited, when a hare-brained young English officer, in command of a reve- 
and the bad 


nue vessel, with the assistance of his crew, had the audacity to try 
luck to succeed in the attempt—to throw the Logan Stone over into water. 

Loud was the rejoicing of the jolly tars at their feat, but short-lived was the 
young lieutenant’s self-congratulation. One united wail of regret and howl of indig- 
nation went up from injured Cornwall. Appeal was made to the admiralty, and 


an order issued by those in power that the treasure should be fished up again trom 


472 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


the sea into which it had been cast, and replaced just where it had stood before, 
At the expense of a year’s work with men and machinery the task was achieved, 
but the exquisite poise and balance of the Logan Stone was lost, and could neyer 
be restored’ to it again. , 

Following the coast westward about five miles, the traveller comes to Land’s 
End, the Bolerium of the ancients, the most westerly point of England, — a wild, 
granite headland, forever wet with the Atlantic mists and the spray of the mighty 
waves that dash and are broken against it. Its extreme point is not over sixty feet 
in height, but the cliffs rise around it to a much greater elevation; and separated 
from it by the water, but evidently part of the same rocky outwork, are isolated 
rocks of various and grotesque forms, —the Shark’s Fin, the Armed Knight, Dr. 
Johnson’s Head, and others. 

In clear weather the ‘Scilly Islands, twenty-seven miles distant, may be distin- 


guished on the western horizon. A tradition exists that these islands were once con- 


Land’s End. 


nected with the mainland by a tract of country called “the Lyonesse,” where, according 


to Tennyson, King Arthur fell, when 


“All day long the noise of battle rolled 


Among the mountains by the wintry sea.” 


Spenser makes out this region as a part of fairy land; but the chroniclers, who go into 
particulars, tell us that it contained a hundred and forty parish churches, and was swept ! 
away by a sudden eruption of the sea. 

About a mile back from the extreme point of Land’s End is a little inn, which, 
with rustic humor, the landlord calls the “first and last” inn in England. <A tablet 
on the side towards the sea indicates it as “the first,” and another on the landward 
side as “the last.” 


Standing on Land’s End, and looking northward, the coast-line, curving into” 


e 


SCENES [NM MANY LANDS. 473 


Whitesand Bay, ends to the eye with Cape Cornwall (see below), which rises at its 
extremity into a precipitous cliff two hundred and thirty feet high. On the isthmus 
connecting this headland with the main line of the coast are the ruins of an old 
chapel, called “ St. Helen’s Oratory,” and the traveller cannot fail to be impressed with 
the genuine devotion of the “Ages of Faith,” who planted a church where we now- 
adays should establish either a life-saving station, or, mayhap, a shelter of some kind 
for the adventurous tourist. To the south from Cape Cornwall, nearly off the point 
of Land’s End, is the Longship Lighthouse, rising from a rocky ledge of granite 
and slate. This light-house, oddly enough, was a work of private enterprise, and paid 
toll to its builder for a number of years. 

A mile and a half to the north, on, or rather in, the next headland that dares 


‘the endless assault of the Atlantic waves, is the remarkable Botallack Copper Mine 


. Cape Cornwall. 


‘(See page 475). And here we must say a word about the mines of Cornwall. 
Known from the very earliest times as a great storehouse of tin, the copper trea- 
sures of this part of England were not dreamed of until the latter end of the fif- 
teenth century, nor sought for with any persistency till early in the eighteenth. The 
truth is, that this metal lies so much deeper in the earth that it requires engineer- 
ing appliances which ruder times could not furnish. But in the present century, with 
all the advantages of modern machinery, and with the safety-lamp, which obviates the 
great peril of explosion, the work has been carried so far and so successfully, that, 
for instance, in the year ending July, 1856, the produce of the Cornish copper-mines 
amounted to a value of a million and a quarter pounds sterling. The tin mines 
meanwhile have not been neglected, and though their produce is not half that of 
the copper mines, yet Cornwall furnishes nine-tenths of all the tin supplied by the 


_ Whole continent of Europe. 


= 
‘, 
Ta 


AT4 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


The most interesting mines to visit, and the most productive in all Cornwall, 


. . : ‘ 
are those close by the sea; and in many cases submarine galleries run out for 


7 


miles, in which, if the traveller has courage to venture for once where the miners 
work every day, he will hear above the noise of the engines, when the coast is 
lashed by the tremendous swell of the Atlantic, the harsh grating of rocks rolling 
to and fro overhead in the bed of the sea. Not only are the levels driven out under 
the water; in one instance a shaft was actually sunk through the sea at a distance 
of seven hundred and twenty. feet from the shore. The upper portion of this shaft 
consisted of a caisson rising twelve feet from the surface of the water, and the pump- 
rod was carried along a stage or wherry erected upon piles. The miners worked at a 
depth of a hundred feet below the bay; the water drained through the roof, and the 
noise of the sea was incessant everywhere. ‘This bold adventure, the only mine ever 
sunk in the sea, was abandoned after a few years, although it was extremely produc- 
tiveisune expenses of carrying it on being so great as to render it unprofitable. 

The Botallack Mine exhibits one of the most impressive combinations of the 
power of art and the sublimity of nature that can be imagined. ‘The tremendous 


crags and cliffs of slate that have for ages defied the violence of ocean, are broken 


up by the operations of the miner, and hung with his complicated machinery. One 


of the engines which drive the works was lowered two hundred feet over the cliff, 


—s 
to the place it now occupies ; another went down a hundred and fifty feet, was 


drawn up for repairs, and lowered again some years later. A remarkable diagonal 


shaft was sunk in 1858, running from just above the water’s edge, in an oblique 
direction, out under the sea, and has been worked to great advantage. This shaft 
is eight feet wide and six feet high, sinking at about five degrees from the hori- 


zontal line, and though in some places it is very crooked and the angles are very 


sharp, the same inclination is maintained throughout its whole length, which is now 


nearly a half mile. 


Leading as they do a life exposed at every hour to the most fearful perils, 


the Cornish miners are a brave, resolute class of men. They have a certain share 


in the proceeds of their work, over and above their regular pay, and this cultivates 


the better qualities largely in them. They are proud of their land and its peculiari- 


ties, and as loyal to their own people as when in James II.’s time they were ready ' 


to march upon London to demand the release of Trelawney, one of the seven bishops — 


whom the king committed to the Tower, and whose name is immortalized in the 


4 


ballad, — ; 


“And shall they scorn Tre, Pol, and Pen? 
And shall Trelawney die? 
Then twenty thousand Cornishmen 


Will know the reason why.” 


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BOTALLACK MINE. 


476 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


And now, having quite rounded the promontory which makes the west point of 


England, we turn east again, and fine the first town of importance, St. Ives (see 


the opposite page), on its beautiful bay, with the wide waters of the open ocean in 
the distance. The town has a fine pier, built by Smeaton in 1767, and a break. 
water was commenced to shut in the bay, but abandoned as too expensive a work. 
An old church stands close to the beach, and is sprinkled by spray in high winds. 
There are mines in the immediate neighborhood of the town, and, with the fisheries, 
they make it an industrious little place. As a picture, St. Ives is the very gem of 
the western ‘coast, and has been said to resemble a Greek village, with its wonder- 


e 
ful coloring of rocks, and sky, and sea. 


by 

. 4 
One more glimpse at the coast of Cornwall we will have between Tintagel “_ 
: 

= 


Coast between Tintagel and Boscastle. 


Boscastle, leaving behind us the ocean, and entering the scarcely less tumultuous 
waters of the Bristol Channel. The line of coast of this region is very remarkable 
and magnificent. The cliffs slope down to the shore in imposing curves, forming 
inclined planes from a hundred to a hundred and fifty feet in length. They are masse ; 
of dark slate varied by white lines, which show, even at a distance, the contortions 
of the strata. 

From Tintagel to Boscastle is about three miles, the intermediate country resem- 
bling a natural terrace, bounded on the side towards the sea by the fine cliffs we haye 
observed, and on the inland side by a range of hills. ; 

Tintagel itself, in the foreground, celebrated as the most romantic scene in Corn- 
wall, derives additional interest from the ruins of a castle of great antiquity, the reputed 
home of King Arthur. The headland strikingly illustrates an action of the sea which 


tends to convert promontories into islands, consisting, as it does, of a peninsula, united to 


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478 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


the coast by a neck of broken rocks, pierced by a long, dark cavern, or rather tunnel, 
which may be visited at low water. A hollow, commencing at the little village of 
Trevenna, opens to the sea in the rocky recess under Tintagel, and the stream which 
ows through it falls over the precipice in a cascade. The ruins of the castle are 
vartly on the mainland and partly on the peninsula, separated by the deep chasm 
occasioned by the wearing away of the isthmus. They consist of dark, disintegrated 
walls, pierced by small square windows and arched doorways. An ancient landing- 
place on the shore, called the Iron Gate, is yet marked by a massive bastion and 
gateway, which, it is believed, date from the time of the ancient Britons. The walls 
are built of slate, united by coarse mortar, but no mouldings or cut stone work of 
any kind remain by which the date of the structure can be ascertained. 

No historic record whatever tells of the erection of this most interesting castle, 
but the tradition connecting Tintagel with Arthur, “the flower of kings,” has every 
sanction which can commend it to our belief. In the medizval romances belonging 
to the cycle of Arthur, the name constantly occurs, with many descriptive particu- 
lars. In the Doomsday Book it is called Dunchine, the Castle of the Cleft ; soon 
after the Conquest it was the residence of the Earls of Cornwall; later it became 
the property of the crown, and was sometimes used as a prison, a Lord Mayor of 
London having been sent thither, in whose “perpetual penitentiary” it may be doubted 
if the Arthurian legends afforded much solace ; and, finally, in Queen LElizabeth’s time 
it was left to fall into ruin. -. 

The traveller, however, leaving its history uncared for, cannot fail to have his 
mind full of the legendary fame of Tintagel, as he stands in the midst of this sol- 
itary and magnificent scene. ‘The ruinous walls are unrelieved by any lichen or ivy, 
and the stones, worn to sharp edges by the weather, are laid on the bare rock, the 
direction of their laminze corresponding with that of the cliffs, so that the ruin and 
the rock are indistinguishable from one another at a little distance. The slate of 
the promontory, where removed from the more destructive action of the waves, has 
been curiously weathered into little basins and ridges, like masses of old snow under 
a spring sun. Some of these basins are called by the village people “King Arthur’s 
Cups and Saucers.” Upon the sea-front, the slate presents a series of inaccessible 
headlands and gloomy recesses, illustrating the influence of the “Atlantic drift.” The 
long undulations have eaten away the cliffs at their base into a concave surface, round- 
ing out above, and rendering them absolutely inaccessible to the shipwrecked sailor 
who may seek to cling to their inhospitable front. 

The most important business centre in the neighborhood of the Bristol Channel 
is Bristol, on the Avon, a few miles from the salt water. The illustration represents 
its suburb, Clifton, extending along the right bank of the little river the white facades 


of its elegant residences. On the cliffs above stand the two towers of a suspension- 


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SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 479 


ridge, built about 1850, and once spanning the river at. a height of two hundred and 
forty-five feet above the water. The bridge itself was carried away by a hurricane, 
and the remaining towers add the picturesque effect of a ruin to the graceful land- 
scape. 

Hight miles below Bristol the Avon falls into the wide Severn, and a light-house, 
built on a long and narrow ledge of rocks (see page 480), indicates the point of con- 
fluence of the two rivers. 

‘ Across the Severn lies Monmouthshire, and the traveller entering this county 
believes himself in Wales, and is surprised to look on the map and find the Princi- 
pality is yet further to the west, and that Monmouthshire is part of England. This 


ordering, however, dates only from the time of Henry VIII., before whose reign the 


. The Avon at Bristol. 


county was an integral part of South Wales, in history and interest perfectly iden- 
tical with it. Subsequently to that era it has still been, in many respects, more 
intimately associated with Wales than with England; and to this day, in the aspect 
of the country, and in the language and habits of the people, it has all the charac- 
teristics of the Principality. In the western and northwestern parts the people retain 
their ancient British prejudices with the utmost tenacity, and brand with the op- 
probrious epithet ‘“ Sassenach,” or Saxon, everything belonging to their powerful 
neighbors. 

‘The county is full of Roman ruins, memorials of the three hundred and _ thirty 
years’ occupation of those masters of the ancient world. Saxon and Norman relics 
are also numerous in castles, castellated mansions, and ecclesiastical edifices; some of 
each of these classes of buildings being among the most picturesque ruins in the 


kingdom. 


>’ ) | 


480 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


Chepstow Castle, standing on a high rock above the little town of Chepstow | 
page 481), is worthy of special attention. It was founded at the time of the Non 
Conquest by William Fitz-Osbern, the Conqueror’s brother ; but the original str 
gave place, about two hundred years later, to a larger and stronger fortress, 
superb ruins yet show how well the English of that time knew to build. 
site occupies three acres, and is divided into four courts. On one side, the cliff o 
which the castle stands is washed by the classic Wye, and on the other sic es, 
deep ditch and circular towers defend the approach. In the eastern side is the 1 n 


entrance, beneath a Norman arch, guarded by two lofty towers and an iron: 7 
door. 


a subterranean room excavated in the rock. In the south-eastern corner of this court 


Mouth of the Avon. 


is a large round tower, which was once a prison. Here one of the regicide judge 


was confined for twenty years, and finally died. Here, too, during the Commonwealth, 


The Ree court is converted into a garden. In the third court is the gra: C 
hall of the building, a great room ninety feet long, with windows and arches in he 


richest Gothic style. The fourth court was connected by a drawbridge with the 1 resi 


of the castle, and would seem to have been an outwork constructed at a later 
period. 


= 


The castle fortifications originally extended around the town, and the remains of 
walls and towers are still visible. The principal historic importance of Chepstow is 
in connection with the civil war of the time of Charles I. The town and castle 


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CHEPSTOW CASTLE. 


482 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. - 


were garrisoned for the king, but in October, 1645, a Parliamentary colonel gained 


possession of them, and retained them till 1648, when a regiment of cavalry surprised 


and’ captured the post. Its importance was 


at this time so great that the Protector 


proceeded in person to recover the lost 
castle, which he speedily did, taking it by — 
assault. 

From Chepstow it is a delightful ex-_ 
cursion of fifteen miles up the Wye to 
Monmouth, the shire town, at the junction — 
of the Wye with the Monnow, and taking 
from the latter stream its name, Monnow- — 


mouth, contracted to Monmouth. 


Hight miles from this town is another _ 


and very celebrated fortress, Raglan Castle, 


which has been made familiar to the read-— 
ers of Macdonald by his novel entitled “St. George and St. Michael.” The scene of” 
this brilliant story is laid in Raglan in 1646, the year of its destruction by Fairfax — 
after a siege of eleven weeks, and the book abounds with graphic pictures of the 
old place, both in its glory and in its downfall. Its two lofty hexagonal towers; its — 
donjon, five stories high, with walls ten feet in thickness; its fountain court, wit . 
“the giant horse, rearing in white marble, almost dazzling in the sunshine, from whose | 
nostrils spouted the jets of water which gave its name to the quadrangle; the little 
chapel, with its triple lancet-windows, over which lay the  picture-gallery, with its 
large oriel lights;” the spring sunshine filling half the court; and, best of all, the varied 
and beautiful life that animated the picture,— the smiling faces of children and ladies, 
the gentlemen in armor, the serving men and maids, the old marquis clad in frieze, 
with his unwieldy person and noble countenance; and Lord Herbert, the eldest son, the 
great inventor, who had subjected the forces of nature to his will, till far and near he 
was esteemed master of the Black Art;—all this is made as real to us as if it were a 
thing of to-day. 

Then follows the story of the siege, the gallant defence, the surrender, and the sad, 
shining procession that passed out from the gates, and took its way towards London. 
And then, the decree of Parliament that Raglan should be destroyed. Lastly, the pil- 
lage of the old place by. the neighboring peasantry. “For years,” says the novelist, 
“T might say centuries after, pieces of furniture and panels of carved oak, bits of 
tapestry, antique sconces and candlesticks of brass, ancient horse-furniture, and a 
thousand things besides of endless interest, were to be found scattered in farm-houses— 


and cottages all over Monmouth and the neighboring: shires.” 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 483 


The living Raglan has gone from me,” he concludes, “and before me rise the 
broken, mouldering walls which are the monument of their own past. My heart swells 
as I think of them, lonely in the deepening twilight, when the ivy, which has flung 
itself like a garment about the bareness of their looped and windowed raggedness, 
is but as darker streaks of the all-prevailing dusk, and the moon is gathering in the 
east. Fain would the soul forsake the fettersome body for a season, to go flitting 
hither and thither, alighting and flitting, like a bat or a bird,—now drawing itself 
slow along a moulding, to taste its curve and flow, now creeping into a cranny, and 
brooding and thinking back till the fancy feels the tremble of an ancient kiss yet 
- softly rippling in the air, or descries the dim stain which no tempest can wash away. 
_ Ah, here is a stair! ‘True, there are but three | steps, a broken one and a fragment. 


“What said I? See how the phantom steps continue it, winding up to the door of 


Viaduct of Crumlin. 


my lady’s chamber! See its polished floor, black as night, its walls rich with tap- 
estry, lovelily old and harmoniously withered, — for the ancient time had its things 
that had come down from solemn antiquity; —see the silver sconces, the tall mirrors, 
the part-opened window, long, low, carved, latticed, and filled with lozenge panes of 
the softest yellow green in a multitude of shades! The vision fades, and the old walls 
rise like a broken cenotaph. But the same sky, with its clouds never the same, hangs 
over them; the same moon will fold them all night in a doubtful radiance befitting the 
things that dwell alone and are all of other times, for she too is but a ghost, a thing 
of the past, and her light is but the light of memory; into the empty crannies blow the 
same winds that once refreshed the souls of maiden and man-at-arms, only the yellow 
flower that grew in its gardens now grows upon its walls.” 

In striking contrast with the superb ruins that are left us by the feudal period, 


484 


m 


NTN 


VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


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than the Viaduct, or railway bridge, of 
Crumlin, on one of the many branch line 
crossing the county. The bridge is so well 
shown in the illustration, page 483, that 
one hardly needs do more in its description 
than to supply the figures. The ten spans 
are of a hundred and fifty feet each, and 
the loftiest of the piers two hundred and 
forty feet high. . 3 
In the valley beneath lies the village 
of Crumlin, a veritable Liliputian town, as 
seen from the lofty viaduct. Down this 
valley runs another railway, following the 
little river Ebbw (pronounced Eb-bo) to . 
the sea, and by this route we may come 
down to Newport, at the mouth of the 
Usk, one of the most important towns in ; 
the county. A very few years have ad-— 
vanced this place from an insignificant vil-— 
lage into a populous and thriving commer- 


cial centre, owing to the inexhaustible min- 


f 
mR « a 


eral wealth of the surrounding district, and : 
the facilities of transportation offered by® 
the numerous canals and railways of the 4 
region. _ 

It is coal which has made the fortune 
of Newport. Everybody deals in it, and : 


| 


finds the business profitable. The city is 


neat and well laid out, with the usual 
public buildings for municipal and commer- 
cial purposes, for education and divine 
worship; it has, besides, large barracks for 
infantry and cayalry. Withal, it has claims 
to high antiquity, being founded by the 
Romans in connection with their station at 
Caerleon. | 

The harbor is admirable, and the docks — 


and basins unsurpassed. The quays are 


ret! bey hah iW 
o 5s Lith 


CHO 


4 


4 


No re 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 485 


: Bnely paved, and edged with large blocks of hewn granite. Standing on one of these 
quays, and looking about, the picture. is truly enchanting. In the foreground is the 
diy, lying gous the level, and rising up the hill-sides to the right and left, while 


a villas, and last, the. old towers of a Norman ruin. 
— Our first town really in the Principality is Milford, situated on Milford Haven, 
a - the western extremity of Wales. The brief history of this place is an extraor- 
din ary instance of great and rapid vicissitudes. The town is of recent origin, haying 
be sen commenced in 1790 by Mr. Charles Greville, the proprietor, under the sanc- 
tion of an Act of Parliament. A large and populous town quickly arose ; a dock- 
yard was constructed for building ships of war; a line of mail-coaches a packets 


daily visited the town; a company engaged in the South-Sea whale-fishery selected 


Milford. 


% ; 


it as the port for their vessels ; laborers of all classes found constant and remuner- 
ative employment, and money to a great amount was circulated. 
\ But within a few years these springs of prosperity failed. The dockyard was 
‘removed four miles farther from the open sea, the whalers sought other ports, the 
line of post-office communication was diverted, much property was rendered unpro- 
ductive, and the interests of the town declined as rapidly as they had advanced. A 
renewal of prosperity, however, which promises to be lasting, has resulted from the 
“many advantages which the place enjoys. 

The principal streets run in parallel lines, east and west, in the direction of the 
; shore, and are mrermbciaa by shorter ones at right angles. The church, at the east- 
perm extremity, is a handsome structure surmounted by a lofty tower. Its stained- 


glass windows exhibit the arms of the families of Hamilton, Barlow, and Greville. 


486 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


Here are preserved a vase of red porphyry from Egypt, bearing an inscription in 


The haven itself is very remarkable; it is twelve miles in length, and varying 


memory of Lord Nelson, and a part of the mainmast of L’Orient, the flag-ship o 
the French admiral at the battle of the Nile. 


in breadth from three miles to one mile, branching into a great number of bays, 
creeks, and roads ; it has in every part complete shelter and firm anchorage, and is — 
sufficiently capacious to hold all the navies in the world in perfect security. Its 


remote situation, however, impairs its utility and value, both for the purposes of com- 


merce and as a station for war-ships; and the noble expanse of water exhibits the 


~ 


tranquil appearance of a quiet and unfrequented inland lake. | 


Carnarvon Castle. Exterior. 


In the north of Wales, Carnarvon is one of the most attractive points to the 
tourist ; and Carnarvon Castle, represented on this and the succeeding page, 
crown and glory of the town. This fortress was built in 1283, by Edward L., after 
his subjugation of Wales; and here, in 1284, his eldest son, afterwards Edward IL, 
was born. The great square tower at the left, in the view of the exterior of Car- 
narvon, guarded the entrance, bearing in a niche the now mutilated statue of its” 
founder, his hand upon a half-drawn sword. The tower in the background of the 
interior view is the one called the “ Eagle,” and had originally sculptured stone eagles 


on the summit of each of its three turrets. Like most of the other castles in Wales, 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. | 487 


“it long held out for King Charles, but fell finally into the hands of Parliament in 


1646. A decree to destroy Carnarvon was issued in 1660, but the execution of the 


-warrant was partially evaded, and now there is still enough of the ancient strong- 
hold standing to show what its former strength must have been. 

_ The old castle was a scene of great festivity at the moment represented by our 
artist, for here was held the national festival of the Histeddfod, or Bardic contests, 
with which’ the Welsh people delight to keep alive the memory of their early his- 
tory and independent existence. The ancient Cymric devices — the eye, representing 
wisdom, and the three rays descending from heaven to earth, and forming the basis 


bs é ; ay 
er the Bardic alphabet — are set up above the great entrance archway, while within the 


time 


ys 


ae 


— 


Fea 


Boke: Me 


ben 


as 


— 


Za: ———————— 


WT) a 
Loy CU CWb BD, 


Carnarvon Castle. Interior. 


Ot ihe SPEED, on ogee & Pa hi I . aa t 7, = Anas 


courtyard marquées are erected, and tri-color flags, blue, green, and white, are flying 
: in ail directions. In former days, the Eisteddfod was the opportunity for a great 
- display of national costume; but the Welsh people, like all the rest of the world, 
have fallen into the snares of fashion. The men are clad in sombre black, and all 
that remains of eccentricity in the female attire is only the high-pointed hat and the 
red and black plaid shawl. 

The county of Carnaryon is divided from its neighbor, Merioneth, for a few miles 


_ by the Aberglaslyn, which, passing through a deep gorge in the mountains, forms 


4 


¢ ca a 


488 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


one of the grandest and most romantic scenes in North Wales. The rapid stream 
dashes over its rocky bed, hemmed in by cliffs on either side seven hundred feet it 
height. The road, in which two carriages can barely pass each other, follows — 
windings of the little river upon its western side, and the wall of rock that tower 
above it shows upon its front, in the conformation of the strata, the clearest marks 
of having been torn from the opposing wall by some extraordinary convulsion of 
nature. The little bridge comects the two adjacent counties, and is the principal 
route of travel between them, and adds, with its graceful arch, a new element 5 7: 
beauty to the picture of which it forms a part. 
Returning to the main route, the traveller will pass through the lovely valley of 
Nant Gwynant, or the Vale of the Waters. All through the valley runs an excel- 


lent road, overlooking Lake Gwynant, and, with its fertile meadows on one hand and 


Llyn Gwynant and Merlin’s Fort. 


. 4 ee . . ; ° & wee 
luxuriant woods on the other, unfolds scenes of exquisite beauty whose impression 18 
greatly heightened by their contrast with the sublimer features of the mountain land- 


scape amidst which they are found. 


Llyn Gwynant is a lovely lake about a mile long and a quarter of a mile in 


breadth. Beyond this, the road runs by the river through a narrow, wooded valley , 
tili it reaches a second lake, smaller, but scarcely less beautiful. Still following the 
river, the road passes close under a remarkable’ rock, known as Merlin’s Fort, which 
is the scene of many wondrous traditions concerning the old magician. : 7 

And so with the name of Merlin our Welsh journey ends. A hundred miles 
by rail, mostly close along the northern coast, brings us back into England, and we 
find ourselves in the old town of Chester, of which Thomas Fuller discourseth thus: 


} 
& 


“Chester is a faire city, on the north-east side of the river Dee, so ancient that 


Wa 


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PONT ABERGLASLYN, 


490 _ VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


» 
- | 


the first founder thereof is forgotten. It is built in the form of a quadrant, and is 


almost a just square ; the four cardinal streets thereof (as I may call them) meet-— 
ing in the middle of the city, at a place called the Pentise, which affordeth a pleas-— 
ant prospect at once into all four. Here is a property of building peculiar to the 
city, called the Rows, being galleries, wherein the passengers go dry, without coming 
into the streets, having shops on both sides and underneath; the fashion whereof is 
somewhat hard to conceive. It is therefore worth their pains who have money and 
leisure to make their own eyes the expounders of the manner thereof; the like being 


said not to be seen in all England, no, nor in all Hurope, again.” 


St. John’s Church. Chester. 


Fuller affirms that “the first founder of the city is forgotten in its antiquity.” It 
may have been a British town; it certainly was an important Roman station, to which 
bears witness the plan of the city, and the arrangement of the principal streets, answer- 
ing accurately to the plan of a Roman camp. ‘The famous Twentieth Legion — the 
Legio vicesima valens victriz—was stationed there, as is proved by the discovery of 
a votive altar raised by an officer of this renowned band. The Saxon monarch Edgar 
held his court in Chester, and had six or eight tributary kings for his oarsmen 
when he made a stately water-parade upon the river Dee. To his time belongs the 


eld Church of St. John, which was then the Cathedral, and though for centuries m 


ee eee 


ruins, still shows in its massive masonry upon how grand a scale the builders of 


those early days reared their temples. 


ee ee de eae ae 
ty — ma al a ea ee 
hens ~ - 


rm. eet YF 


Page 


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4 


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‘habe ROR ee 


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sy 
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a YA Me dd; 
CTL ERAS 


A 


ey Pree, Wee 


Engraved by LF. Lambert - 


we 


DB ats) 


Painted byJ.Stark . 


BRIDGE, 


NORWICH . 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. | 491 


of 


_ On pages 491 and 493, our artist has represented two Scottish pictures, Hdin- 
* burgh Castle, and the solemn ruin of Holyrood, for around these two buildings centres 
‘all the wild drama of Scottish history. They are both situated upon the central 
“hill, the most important of the four or five which make up the city of Edinburgh, 
which hill, shaped like a wedge, lying with its sloping side uppermost, bears the Castie 
at its upper or thick end, and Holyrood Palace at its lower or thin end. ‘This ridge 
lies nearly east and west, its highest point being at its western extremity, where it 


_ reaches a height of about four hundred feet above the sea-level ; on this western side 


j 


saa 


i 


i 


/ 


1 


; 


T 


: 


rm 


6 ee eee 


a a. a 


the rock is bare and inaccessible ; it has slopes of almost impracticable descent on the 


north and south; but eastward it communicates with the sloping street, which under 
two names, the High Street and the Canongate, descends to Holyrood, a mile dis- 
tant in nearly a straight line. 

In the seventh century, the Northumbrian king Edwin built a fort on Castle 
Rock, to which was given by the Celtic people the name Dun-Edin, or Edwin’s 
Fort, — an archaic designation still poetically applied to the Scottish capital; the Eng- 
lish, however, called it Edwinsburg, which remains scarcely altered, the present name 


of the city. By 854, quite a large village had grown up around the base of the Rock 


492 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


and on its eastern slope, until in the twelfth century it had become a town of i 


portance. 


Edinburgh, planned a line of street from Le abbey up the slope of the ‘a 
shaped hill, till it joined the High Street of the city in a continuous line, and this 
new road received the name of the Canongate. | 

The old Castle occupies about six acres of ground, throwing off on its eastern 
side an esplanade, communicating with the High Street, and affording a parade-ground 
and promenade. From this parade we advance westward to a barrier of palisades ; 
then a dry ditch and a drawbridge, flanked by low batteries; then a guard-house, a 
strong gateway, more batteries, an arsenal and barracks; and at last a second oat 
way gives an entrance to the inner and older portion s the Castle, in which are 
Queen Mary’s state apartments, and the crown room where are lodged the regalia of 
Scotland. 

The view seen from the Castle is magnificent. Queen Victoria, when she visited 
Edinburgh in 1842, sat down on the parapet to admire this splendid picture, and 
the people, assembled by thousands in Princes Street below, espied her; the hand- 
kerchief which she waved in response to their cheering was distinctly seen below, 
while the captain of the Pique frigate, lying out in the Firth of Forth, with his tele- 
scope discerned the lady, and thundered out to her from the distance a royal salute. 

And now what is Holyrood, whose name is so familiar ? Originally an abbey, 
it early became a residence of the Scottish kings, and was Mary Stuart’s special 
home. Here are shown her private apartments, the embroidered bed, the chairs, the 
little basket, the tapestry that belonged to her: and here is the blood-stained room 
where Rizzio was murdered. | 

The palace itself is in good repair, — an elegant stone building of a quadran- 
gular form. Its length is about two hundred and thirty feet, its width a little less. 
The west front consists of only two stories, the others of three; and the portico in 
the centre of the west front is adorned with massive columns and a little cupola 
shaped like an imperial crown. 

The ruins of Holyrood Chapel lie behind the palace, and are seen from a dis« 
tance, a conspicuous and picturesque object. After dilapidations of various kinds the 
roof gave way in 1768, and since that time the whole has been an utter ruin, beau- 
tiful in its desolation,—a theme for painters and poets. 

Returning to Hngland, let us take a look at farming and fox-hunting Lincoln- 


shire, a most curious county, at once one of the ancient and one of the most modern 


a ee tte ee 


parts of England. Lincoln was a British town when the Romans, conquering the 
country, built a camp on the lofty hill where the Cathedral now stands, — a solemy 7 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 493 


‘ 
a 


SSS ~~! 


landmark for miles across the flat, treeless level,—and ran a road straight to the 
north, the Ermine Way, a splendid piece of engineering, lasting to this day, wide, 
straight for half the length of the county, so that a traveller at Winteringham, thirty 
miles off, asking his way to Lincoln, would be told to keep straight on, and he 
could not miss it. Lying upon the North Sea, the country was especially exposed 
to the ravages of the Danes late in the ninth century, and suffered severely from them, 
losing nearly all its ecclesiastical buildings, becoming also the burial-place of three 
Danish leaders, or vikings, who were interred at Threckingham, whence its name to 
this day. 

After the Norman Conquest, when all fear of Northern invasions had passed by, 
Lincolnshire repaired her losses, and many stately abbeys and churches arose, chief 
among all, the beautiful Cathedral of the shire town. Its exterior presents one of the 
noblest specimens of early English architecture and ornament to be found in the 
country. Its two western towers are a hundred and eighty feet high, and the pinnacles 


of its central tower rise to the height of three hundred. The whole exterior of the 


494 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


building is very elaborately ornamented, but its color being dark-gray, it has a look 
of sombre gravity, in spite of its airy pinnacles and grotesque corbels and gar- 
goyles. As will be remarked in the picture, it is unfortunately much crowded by 
neighboring houses, so that its best view, the southwest angle, is necessarily somewhat 
imperfect. 

Lying nearly in the centre of England, Derbyshire, in its northern part called 
“the Peak,” has the beautiful scenery of a mountain region, combined with the soft 
loveliness of the most fertile valleys in the kingdom, — those of the Wye and the 


Derwent, and the region famous among pedestrian tourists, the enchanting Dove Dale. 


Ly) 


4) 
yj Wy, 


ily 


: 
| 


, 


awa 


oe ile i 


———s 
Lincoln Cathedral. 


trees, seem more of a stronghold than they really are, for Haddon Hall was not built 
till the feudal period had quite passed away, the oldest part of the building belong=— 
ing to the fifteenth century, and most of it being of no earlier date than the six- 
teenth. ‘The old manor is mentioned in the Doomsday Book, when it belonged to. 
the Avenels; but in the time of Henry VI. it had fallen by marriage to the Ver- 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 49 


vt 


i; nons, and again, in 1565, it passed by marriage into the Rutland family, with whose 
estates it now belongs. 

| The great hall in the castle is described by Sir Walter Scott, in his “ Peverel 
of the Peak,” in passages too familiar to be cited here. The apartment is now bare 
of furniture, only a few stags’ horns being suspended upon the walls by way of orna- 
ment, but in its silent and deserted state is singularly impressive to the imagination. 
~ Adjacent to the great hall is tle dining-room, an apartment constructed when it had 
become the fashion for the lord of the manor to dine somewhat less in public than 


“in feudal times. This is probably one of the oldest of these private dining-rooms ; 


Haddon Hall. 


it was erected about 1545, and in its day must have been a splendid room. The 
ceiling is divided into compartments by carved beams which were richly colored and 
gilded. The walls are covered with panelled oak, a fanciful carved cornice is car- 
ried round the room, and the fireplace is profusely carved. Among other figures may 
‘be remarked a portrait of Henry VII. and his queen. Here, as in the other rooms, 
the boar’s head, the device of the Vernons, and the peacock, that of the Manners, 
are perpetually recurring. The drawing-room and the bed-room connected with it are 


particularly interesting. The former has a noble bay-window, and the old furniture 


496 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


of all three apartments is most captivating to the eye. ‘The rude doors, with their 
hangings of arras, are also very noticeable. 

From these rooms we pass into the grand gallery, a room over a hundred feet 
long, eighteen feet wide, and fifteen in height. Three great bay-windows are thrown 
out on one side of it, and tradition says that the floor is made from a single oak, 
which was cut for the purpose in Haddon Park. This gallery was the old ball- 
room, and Queen Elizabeth is said to have danced here herself. At the present day, 
now and then a ball is given here to the neighbors and “tenantry. 

We must not leave Haddon Hall without referring to a fair damsel of the six- 
teenth century, whose name is attached to her own room and to the upper terrace, 
whence she is reported to have made her escape to join her lover, waiting below. 


The lady was Dorothy Vernon, daughter of him who was called “the King of the 


) 
7 


Dorothy Vernon’s Terrace ; 


Peak,” by reason of his thirty manor-houses ; and she not only brought her fair self 


to her lover, but also the castle, at her father’s death, she and her sister being co- 


heiresses to the thirty manors. 


ern show-place of the Peak. Nothing more splendid exists in all England than this 
princely home of the Duke of Devonshire. Its walls hung with yelvet and silk, its 
superb carvings by Grinling Gibbons, its seulpture gallery, its modern Hnglish paint- 
ings, its tapestry,—are worthy of a palace. 

Nor do the riches of Chatsworth end with the house. The grounds and gardens 


are also of the most costly and tasteful character. Its water-works are a show only 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 497 


covering nearly an acre of ground. . All this was, as is well known, designed by Sir 
Joseph Paxton, the eminent horticulturist, who originated the plan of combining iron 
and glass in structures of such magnitude as successive Expositions have made familiar 
to us all. 

It is here that the famous Victoria Regia, brought from South America in 1849 
by Mr. Bridges, has its palace of glass, and expands its superb flowers. (See illus- 
tration on next page.) The leaves of this plant are from six to twelve feet in diame- 
ter, and having the margin turned up for a border a couple of inches high, they 
resemble gigantic salvers. ‘The firmness of their texture is such that large water- 
birds can stand upon them. The flower opens by night twice, remaining closed dur- 
ing the intervening day, and the second time it opens presents a totally different 


appearance. It is at first all white, cup-shaped, and very fragrant. The second day 


f it 
| 


MN 
il 
ih i 


{ 
i 


Courtyard. Haddon Hall. 


it has quite lost its perfume, it is bright pink, and the petals are reflexed. The 
tank in which this plant grows must be of great size, it will be seen, and it also 
requires to be so constructed as to keep the water at a high temperature. 

Southwest from Derbyshire, and on the borders of Wales, we find Shropshire, 
which is also called Salop, whose ancient capital of Shrewsbury has many points of 
interest and attraction. In the Doomsday Book of William the Conqueror, Shrewsbury 
is mentioned as having two hundred and fifty-two houses, and five churches. It 
is held in popular remembrance through its cakes and its ale, and also for the mention 
Shakespeare makes of the town where Falstaff boasts that he fought with Hotspur, 
“a long hour by Shrewsbury clock.” 

The Abbey Church was in great part demolished in the time of Henry VIII., but 


the nave and the western tower remain, and with some restorations have been adapted 


. 
q 
i 7 
~ 


+s 
1 
BB 
ae Ee 
bs 
: 


498 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


to parochial use. The architecture was originally Norman, but has undergone mate- 
rial alterations, especially by the insertion of a large Gothic window in the face of 
the western tower. Beneath this window is a Norman doorway, whose recess is. 
adorned with various mouldings. 

Two cathedral towns of the west of England next claim our attention, — Hereford, 
represented in the accompanying engraving, and Worcester, in that facing page 4658. 
Considerable interest attaches to Hereford, a beautiful city on the Wye, surrounded by 
the lovely, garden-like scenery for which the county is distinguished. The Cathedral 
belongs to the twelfth century, excepting the great central tower, which was added 


later. ‘The architecture is for the most part Saxon and early Norman, but the exterior 


Aquarium of the Victoria Regia. Chatsworth. 


exhibits much diversity of style. The interior is ornamented with a profusion of carved 
work, and mouldings exquisitely wrought ; there is a very beautiful window of stained 
glass, a fine reredos, and a choir screen of carved metal of recent workmanship. 

The city of Worcester, on the Severn, is now a large and industrious place, 
carrying on manufactures of importance; of these, the best known in America are 
the Royal Porcelain Works, which furnish some of our most beautiful and costly arti- 
cles for Christmas gifts. 

The Cathedral stands on the south side of the city, and is in the form of @ 
double cross, three hundred and eight feet long, with a pinnacled central tower a 


hundred and seventy feet high. An earlier church, erected on this spot, dates an 


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REST VIEW or 


SOUTH W. 


SCENES IN. MANY LANDS. 499 


the tenth century, and it is believed the western arches in the nave are part of this 
structure. The interior is vaulted throughout with stone, and is the work of various 
periods and in different styles. So, indeed, are large portions of the cathedral, — 


a : ° : . 
the choir being in the early pointed style, the nave of the later pointed, the cloisters 


ca 
» 


the decorated pointed, and so on. 

The old place abounds in tombs and monuments. It contains the earliest royal 
tomb in England, that of King John, which was opened in the last century, and 
the coffin shown to the people. 


From Worcester, a charming trip by rail brings the traveller to the old city of 


aa 


Shrewsbury. 


4 Warwick, in the very heart of the shire of the same name, a magnificent country, 

containing some of the finest woodland scenery in the kingdom. 

If it were our intention to speak of the great manufacturing towns, Birmingham, 
the giant city of Warwickshire, with its wonderful development of industries of so 
many kinds, would engross our pages; but the picturesque element is naturally lack- 

: ing in the great industrial centres, and we turn from the modern city, with all its 

_ wealth and prosperity, to linger delightedly around old Warwick, and Kenilworth in 

’ tuins, and Stratford-upon-Avon, dear with the most precious memory in all the lit- 


erature of England. 


500 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


“It is a rare consolation,” says Knight, “to turn from castles made into prisons 
and abbeys into stables, to such a glorious relic of old England as Warwick Castle.” 


And Sir Walter Scott calls it “the finest monument of ancient and chivalrous splen- 


dor which remains uninjured by time.” Since the time of Artegal, Harl of Warwick, 


one of the Knights of the Round Table, the place has been the home of many braye 
men, none more famous than the redoubtable Guy, who was nine feet tall, who per- 
formed prodigies of valor, and ended his days as a hermit on the cliff which bears 
his name. ‘This was in the Saxon time. After the Norman Conquest the castle was 
enlarged, and conferred upon Henry de Newburgh, in whose family it continued for 
six generations; then passing to the Beauchamps, and on the expiration of the male 
line of that house, falling to Richard Neville, the “ Warwick” of history, who became 
known as “the Kingmaker.” ‘This great noble, the last of the barons who openly 
defied the crown, fell at the battle of Barnet; and of his two daughters, one mar- 
ried the Duke of Clarence, Shakespeare’s “false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,” and the 
other, after being the widow of the Prince of Wales, became the unhappy wife of 
Gloucester. In Henry VII.’s time the extinct title was revived, and bestowed upon 
the Dudleys, and after further mutations of less historical interest, fell at last to the 
Grevilles, in which family it now remains. 

The Castle stands upon the bank of the Avon, which foams past, over the wei 
of an ancient mill where once the inhabitants of the borough were bound by feudal 


service to grind all their corn. Five miles to the north is Kenilworth, the great 


ruin, the home of Queen Elizabeth’s brilliant favorite, Robert, Earl of Leicester, the 


scene of Sir Walter Scott’s magnificent novel. Of this lordly palace, where princes 
feasted and a queen was a visitor, and where brave men fought, — now in games 
of chivalry, and now in the deadly earnest of storm and siege, — “ all,” says Sir 
Walter Scott, “all is now desolate. The bed of the lake is but a rushy swamp, 
and the massive ruins of the castle only show what their splendor once was, and 
impress on the musing visitor the transitory value of human possessions, and the hap- 
piness of those who enjoy a humble lot in virtuous contentment.” 
The original keep or donjon of Kenilworth Castle appears to have been built by 
the founder, Geffroi de Clinton, treasurer and chamberlain to Henry I., once but a 
soldier of fortune, but before his death chief-justice of England. This donjon is dis- 
tinguished from the other Norman towers of that period by having had no prisons 
underground, — such at least is the conclusion; for in several experiments which haye 
been expressly made for ascertaining the truth of this exception, the ground on which 
it stands has been found solid, and with no appearance of either arches or excaya- 
tions, although the examination has been carried to a depth of fifteen feet. It is 
probable, however, that the dungeons were in the Square towers above, or in a part 


near the foundation which remains to be discovered, for it is hardly possible that an 


. 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 501 


° ° 
_ appendage so indispensable to a feudal residence would have been omitted from this 


q early stronghold. 

’ This massive and gigantic structure, built capable of resisting the slow waste of 
centuries, has suffered, however, greatly from violence. The north side has been 

_ demolished, either for the sake of its materials, or to render it incapable of being 

again occupied as a fortress. Certain alterations have evidently been made, probably 

by Leicester himself, to render this ancient portion of the castle harmonious with that 

of the Hlizabethan period, — notably in the tops of the windows, which originally had 


the round Norman arch, and have been made square. The small towers which crowned 


Warwick Castle. 


the four angles were also originally much higher, and have been reduced, the ancient 
character of the building being thus a good deal impaired. The stairs in the south- 
west and north-east angles, the ancient well, some remains of color in fresco in 
imitation of niches with trefoil heads, are among the few objects within the building 
that arrest the eye and invite careful attention. 

The grandson of the founder of Kenilworth parted with his estate to the king, 
and it remained royal property till given, in 1253, by Henry H1., to the great Simon 
de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, from whose son the king and his son Prince Edward 
recovered it by siege, in 1265. This siege of Kenilworth Castle was very memo able. 
Great stone balls were employed by the besieged ; some of them, which have been 

? 


502 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. * q 
since dug up, measure sixteen inches in diameter and weigh over two hundred pounds. 
“But I do not think,” says an old commentator, “the gunnes of those days were 
such gunnes as we nowe use, but rather some pot gunne, or some such other in- 
vention.” | 

Having recovered possession of the fortress, King Henry gave it to his younger son 
Edmund, and in the same year this castle of Kenilworth was the scene of one of those 
brilliant displays. which began and ended with the days of chivalry, but still sparkle in 
the pages of the old chroniclers. On this occasion the company consisted of five-score 
knights and as many ladies; among the former were many foreign knights of distine- 
tion, who, in honor of their lady-loves, had come to break a lance with England’s chivy- 
alry. The days were spent in the pageantry of the tilt-yard, and the evenings with 
music and dancing, and, after the ladies had withdrawn, with wassail prolonged till a 
late hour of the night. Of the dress of these court dames it is mentioned, as a proof 
of the extreme luxury of the period, that they all appeared “in rich silken mantles.” 

The hall in which these and other banquets were held is still magnificent in 
decay. Its proportions — which, by the way, seem to have been judged finest by the 
builders of that time, since we find them often repeated — were ninety feet in length, 
forty-five in breadth, and the same in height. In the windows, the richness of the 
mouldings and tracery still remains as a proof of what they must have been when, 
on the decoration of this castle, all that art could accomplish or wealth command 
was lavishly bestowed. The under-hall “is carried upon pillars and architecture of 
freestone, carved and wrought as the like are not within this kingdom.” It is of 
the same dimensions as the Barons’ Hall above, and was intended for those numer- 
ous attendants and retainers who accompanied the guests. On each side of the upper 
hall is a fireplace; near the inner court is an oriel, “in plan comprehending five 
sides of an octagon,” and a fireplace. 

In the next century Kenilworth was for a time the place of Edward Il’s im- 
prisonment; and it was here that the king, gowned in black, coming out of an inner 
chamber into the great hall to meet an embassy from his rebellious subjects, “ sorrow 
stroke such a chillnesse into him that he fell to the earth, lying stretched forth in 
a deadly swoon.” And presently, being recovered a little, consented to the wish of 
_his people, resigning the kingly power and dignity to Prince Edward, his eldest son. 

The next point of interest in the history of Kenilworth Castle is the time when 
it fell into the hands of “old John of Gaunt, time-honored Lancaster;” then, how- 
ever, a youthful bridegroom, and obtaining Kenilworth as part of his wife’s dower. 
“Lancaster Buildings” were among the important additions now made to the castle. 
The repairs, additions, and embellishments made by the duke consist of this range 


of buildings, forming the south side of the inner quadrangle, and the tower with 


d 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 503 


‘three stories of arches on the north. He also flanked the outer walls with turrets, 


and did much in strengthening the means of defence. 

Then followed the Wars of the Roses, and Kenilworth Castle was alternately in 
the power of the rival houses, and the lighter amusements of the age —the chival- 
rie entertainments, jousts, and tournaments — were laid aside for the stern realities of 
war. Days of battle, and nights of mourning or fearful preparation, drove mirth and 
festivity from the gate; and the continual tramp of steeds, the clang of arms, and 
the approach of fresh conflicts, kept alive that melancholy interest and excitement 
which for a time isolated this grand old fortress and its garrison within the pale of 


its own fosse and ramparts. 


Kenilworth Castle. 


On the accession of Henry VII. the Castle was bestowed upon his son, the Duke 
of Cornwall, who made many repairs and added many embellishments, and a great 
suite of apartments still bears his royal name, being called “Henry the Highth’s Lodg- 
ings.” From the time of Bluff Harry to that of Queen Bess, it remained a royal 
castle, till the “Maiden Queen” gaye it to her favorite, Robert Dudley, and the period 
of Scott’s novel begins. 

The repairs, alterations, and additions now made to the Castle were on the grand- 


est scale, and what is left of them still bears witness to their importance and mag- 


nitude. Space fails us to quote, as we gladly would, from the brilliant pages of 


504. VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


_ 


Scott, the description of Kenilworth when it received a queen as its gay young master’s 
guest. And a few lines more must complete our story. After his splendid recep- 
tion of the queen, which cost the noble host a thousand pounds a day, he continued 
to make the Castle his favorite residence, and at his death left it to his brother 
Ambrose, and after him to his own son, Robert, who, however, never was allowed 
to enjoy his rights. The estate was seized by James I., who required Sir Robert to 
sell it at a third of its value to Henry, Prince of Wales, and so this great property 
returned to the crown. Charles I. granted it to the Careys, and at the Rebellion 
it fell into the hands of Cromwell, who divided it among several of his officers, by 
whom it was pillaged and plundered with truly Vandal barbarism. ‘They stripped 
the castle of its princely decorations, cut down the timber, drained the lake, and 
demolished the very walls for the sake of the materials. 

Upon the Restoration Kenilworth became once more royal property, and was now 
granted to the Hydes, passing, by an heiress of this house, to the Villiers family, in 
whose possession it remains. 

In taking leave of Kenilworth, one cannot but regret, with Fuller, that so splen- 
did a structure should have passed so rapidly into a mass of ruins; and that, not by 
the slow waste of time, not by the frequency of siege, nor by any elemental violence, 
but by the wanton hand of aggression. “I am not stocked with charity,” says this 
delightful old writer, “to pity the miners thereof, if the materials of this castle an- 
swered not their expectation who destroyed it. Some castles have been demolished 
for security, which I behold destroyed, ‘se defendendo, without offence ; others demol- 
ished in the heat of wars, which I look upon as castle-slaughter; but I cannot 
excuse the destruction of this castle from wilful murder, being done in cold blood, 
since the end of the wars.” 

Ten miles south from Warwick is Stratford, forever memorable as the place of 
Shakespeare’s home and grave. The little town is quiet and sunny; the gentle river, 
the old woods, the level meadows, all have a charm of rural beauty, which elsewhere 
might claim our attention; but in Stratford we can only think of him who lived 
and died here not quite three centuries ago; and the only picture we present of 
Stratford represents that portion of the old church wherein he lies buried. 

The building itself is a large and venerable cruciform structure, consisting of a 
nave with side aisles, a transept, a chancel, and a square battlemented tower. The 
tower, transepts, and some other portions are of the early English style and very 
perfect; the remainder belongs to a later period, but is not less graceful. Its win- 
dows are some of them full of rich tracery. The church stands upon the banks of 
the Avon, which is fringed by a few willows, and an avenue of lime-trees leads to 
it from the town. The whole appearance of the structure and its surroundings is 


extremely pleasing. Beautiful as is the exterior, the interior is even finer. 


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506 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


Shakespeare’s monument adorns the doorway on the left of the chancel. It is 
a bust the size of life; above it is a tablet, bearing his coat of arms and the figures 
of two children, and on either side a Corinthian pillar. Underneath are inscriptions — 
in Latin and in English. Below the monument, and a few paces out from the wall, 
is the flat stone, bearing the extraordinary prohibition which has hindered inquisitive 
generations, from his time to our own, from disturbing the poet’s resting-place in 
search of information possibly hidden there, concerning a life so shrouded in mys- 


tery as Shakespeare’s has ever been. 


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In the adjacent county of Oxfordshire the traveller will find much to delight his 
eye and engross his thoughts. This midland county is full of historic associations; 
it has its battlefields of the Civil Wars, its Roman embankment, its Druidic crom- 
lech, a wonder even in the days of the Venerable Bede. Just in the centre of Ox- 
fordshire is a famous manor which, under two names, figured in widely remote periods 
of English history, — the Woodstock of an earlier day, the Blenheim of our own. 

As the royal manor of Woodstock, the place was a favorite with Alfred; Henry 
I. established here the earliest Zodlogical Garden, where, says Holinshed, “beside great 


store of deer, he appointed diverse strange beasts to be kept and nourished, which 


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SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 507 


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were brought and sent to him from foreign countries far distant, as lions, leopards, 
lynxes, and porcupines.” He enclosed the Park with a stone wall, the first ever con- 
structed for ornamental purposes in England. In 1163, Henry II. resided here, and 

planned the famous maze, wherein he sheltered Fair Rosamond from the jealousy of 

the queen. Edward I. even honored the place so highly as to hold a parliament 
‘here. In the same century three royal princes were born in Woodstock. In 1555, 

_ Blizabeth, when princess, was confined here a prisoner by her sister Mary, and wrote 
a pathetic stanza upon a window-shutter, bewailing her hard lot. 

“Of this ancient and renowned royal mansion,” says Macaulay, “not a stone is 
now to be seen, but the site is still marked in the turf of Blenheim Park by two 
_ sycamores, which grow near the stately bridge.” The picture vanishes; King Alfred, 
writing his translation of Boéthius, — Fair Rosamond and her furious enemy, Queen 
_Hleanor,—the grand gathering of the barons, — the baby Black Prince and his brother, 

—the pensive Elizabeth, “who wished herself to be a milkmaid,” — all these royai 
and feudal figures disappear; the palace goes to ruin, the manor is untenanted. -A 

_ century and a half from the time when Elizabeth heard out of her garden the milk- 
maid “singing pleasantly,”— perhaps on the very anniversary, for it was the 18th of 
June, a good time of year for singing milkmaids,— the foundation-stone was laid 
of the modern palace of Blenheim, in the royal manor of Woodstock, now granted 

by the queen to John, Duke of Marlborough (by tenure of a standard presented at 

Windsor every 2d of August), in consideration of his eminent military services, coupled 

with half a million voted by Parliament, to build him a palace, “as a monument of 
his glorious actions.” It took the name of Blenheim from a little village on the 

_ Danube, which was the scene of his greatest victory. 

} The history of the erection of Blenheim is quite a dramatic chapter — of the 
serio-comic order —in the history of English architecture. The funds yoted were not 
forthcoming for the work, and it was left for the queen to make up the deficiency, 
which she did, quite regularly, as long as she lived. After her death, however, the 
court would no longer issue treasury orders; and Marlborough himself very naturally 
objected to pay for a palace that the nation had, by its legislature, formally engaged 
to build for him. Somehow the work went on, though very slowly, and the accounts 
and responsibilities became more and more involved, till the climax was reached by 
getting into chancery. Never was architect worse used than the unlucky designer of 
Blenheim, Vanbrugh. From the time of the queen’s death, the building that was to 
‘immortalize his name was a constant source of vexation to him. He not only found 
‘it impossible to get any pay for his own labors, but for a while there seemed a 
chance that he would be forced himself to pay the workmen employed upon the 
building, — at least the duchess’ lawyers endeavored to prove that he was the party 


liable. Vanbrugh had provoked that celebrated virago by the rather free use of 


508 VOYAGES AND. TRAVELS. 


both tongue and pen at her expense, and she had too much wit herself not to feel 
the keenness of his attack, and too fiery a temper to accept quietly an affront. Upon 
the duke’s death, she at once dismissed Vanbrugh; but she retained his plans, and 
the castle was ultimately finished during her lifetime. 

To describe Blenheim as it now exists would require a volume. How can one 
do justice in half a page to the stupendous mass of buildings, with its grand effects 
of light and shadow, and its solidity as of Titanic structures, — the architectural gran- 
deur of its interior, abundantly supported by the richness of the furniture and fittings, 
and the Raphaels, the Rubens, the Vandykes, the Titians, of its picture gallery, — 
the park, with its twenty-seven hundred acres, abounding in old oaks and cedars, “its 
trees planted in groups to represent the battle of Blenheim, each battalion of soldiers 
being represented by a distinct plantation of trees,” and its lofty monumental column, 
surmounted by a colossal statue of the duke, and the great triumphal arch by which 
visitors enter the grounds. Dr. Waagen, a learned German, who wrote a book on 
“Art and Artists in England,” says of Blenheim: “If nothing were to be seen in 
England but this seat and its treasures of art, there would be no reason to com- 
plain of going to this country. The whole is on so grand a scale that no prince 
in the world need be ashamed of it for his summer residence.” 

To the same reign which witnessed the erection of Blenheim belong the house 
and pleasure-grounds of Stowe, twenty miles away, in the north of Oxfordshire. ‘The 
gardens of Stowe were perhaps the finest example of landscape gardening in Hng- 
land; originally laid out by Sir Richard Temple, the friend of Pope, and alluded to 
by the poets of that epoch with great enthusiasm. An ayenue two miles long leads 
from the town over two gentle slopes to the park, which one enters by quite a stately 
Corinthian arch, from which point the house shows its long and elegant fagade in 
the Greek style. It is unfortunately now quite dismantled, and the treasures it once 
contained were dispersed over all the kingdom by the famous sale which took place 
there in 1848, lasting about five weeks, probably the most remarkable sale of a pri- 
vate collection ever made in England. 

Horace Walpole writes amusingly of a visit of the Princess Amelia to Stowe. 
“We all of us,” he says, “giddy young creatures of near three-score, supped in a 
grotto in the ‘Elysian Fields,’ and were refreshed with rivers of dew and gentle 
showers that dripped from all the trees, and put us in mind of the heroic ages, when 
kings and queens were shepherds and shepherdesses, and lived in caves, and were 
wet to the skin two or three tinies a day. On Wednesday night a small Vauxhall 
was acted for us in the grotto, which was illuminated, as were the thickets and two 
little barks on the lake. The idea was pretty, but as my feelings have lost some- 
thing of their romantic sensibility, I did not quite enjoy such an entertainment al 


Jresco, as I should have done twenty years ago. The evening was more than cool, 


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510 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS.. 


and the destined spot anything but dry. There were not half lamps enough, and no 
music but an old militia-man, who played cruelly on a kind of tabor and pipe. As 
our procession descended the vast flight of steps into the gardens, in which were 
assembled a crowd of people from Buckingham and the neighboring villages, to see 
the princess and the show, I could not help laughing as I surveyed the troop, which, 
instead of tripping lightly to such an Arcadian entertainment, were hobbling down 
by the balustrade, wrapped up in great-coats and cloaks, for fear of catching cold.” 
Next east of Oxford is Northamptonshire, one of the great grazing counties, 
whose famous Cathedral of Peterborough our artist has represented in the engraving 
facing page 506. ‘The city itself had its origin in a great Benedictine monastery 


founded in 655. ‘This monastery, which became one of the wealthiest and most im- 


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The Park of Stowe. 


portant in all England, was reared in honor of St. Peter, and after being destroyed 
by the Danes in 807, and rebuilt a century and a half later, the town was called 
Peterborough. On the dissolution of the monasteries the Cathedral of Peterborough 
was spared, — for within these sacred walls lie buried the remains of Henry VIII.’s 
first queen, the Spanish Catherine. The slab of blue. stone covering her tomb bears 
only the inscription, “Queen Catherine, A. p. 1536.” In 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots, 
was buried here; nor was it till her son King James had been for some years on the 
Knglish throne that the remains of the unhappy and beautiful queen were transferred 
to their stately tomb in Westminster Abbey. ‘ 

The Cathedral of Peterborough has one central tower, one hundred and fifty 


i 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 511 


feet in height ; its west front consists of three beautiful arches, each surmounted by 
a pediment and cross. The front is flanked by turrets, six feet higher than the 
central tower. ‘This west front, which as a portico, using that word in its classical 
sense, is said to be the grandest in Hurope, is in the early English style; the rest of 
the building is chiefly Norman. A peculiar feature of the interior is the painted roof 
of the nave, which bears figures of kings, bishops, and various symbolical designs 
painted in colors upon it. 

We now come to Norfolk, a county which has the distinction of being the most 
eastern, as Cornwall is the most western portion of England. Advancing its curve 
into the tumultuous waters of the German Ocean, Norfolk has gained upon the sea 
in the process of centuries, and may be regarded in its eastern part as an exten- 
sive region of “made land,” which the sea itself has cast up in its ceaseless agita- 
tion. In Cornwall, which presents a rocky front to the waves, the chafing current 
and the sapping flood have carried on, since the beginning of time, their work of de- 
struction, cutting off promontories into islands, and laying under water whole sections 
of country, as we have seen is the case near St. Michael’s Mount. In Norfolk, on 
the other hand, the case is reversed; from the flat and shelving coast the sea by 
degrees has retired further and further, leaving the dry sand and silt which it has 
deposited; estuaries become valleys; and extensive forelands are interposed between 
the line of the ancient shore and the bed of the receding ocean. 

Where now the Yare through a narrow outlet discharges its own waters and 
those of its tributaries,— the Bure, the Waveny, and the Wensum, which drain the 
whole eastern half of the county, — there was once an extensive estuary, occupying 
the valley of the Yare as far up as Norwich, and the connected valleys of the two 
first-named branches of this river, and communicating with the sea by three openings, 
thus forming a series of islands along a line of coast thirty miles in extent. Thus 
Norwich, when first built, was undoubtedly a seaport, and as late as the thirteenth 
century received the visits of foreign vessels. Year by year, however, the waters of 
the ocean withdrew more and more from these interior valleys, and they were left a 
series of marshes, by degrees improved into flourishing meadows, while the streams 
gradually collected into two or three large channels, falling at last into one —the 
Yare. 

So far, so good ; but the same causes still continue to produce the same effects; 
and the navigation of this remaining outlet is subjected to difficulties which require 
constant labor and expense to counteract. The sand deposited at the mouth of the 
Yare has at different periods rendered it inaccessible to vessels even of light bur- 
den, threatening utter ruin to the commerce of which it is the medium. In 1347, the 
inhabitants of Yarmouth obtained from Edward II. permission to cut a new haven, 


and during the two succeeding centuries no less than six other works of the same 


512 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


kind were undertaken, the cost of which was in part defrayed by contributions levied 
from the surrounding district, and in part by exemptions from taxes and other privyi- 
leges granted by acts of parliament or letters-patent from the crown. 

In the year 1559 the present haven was made, and has been maintained ever 
since, but the expense of clearing away the sand that has always accumulated at the 
entrance has been a constant and serious evil. After various temporary expedients 
for raising money, such as the appropriation of plate, bells, ornaments, and money, 
belonging to various churches, — even going so far as at one time to come to a 
proposal to take off the lead from Norwich Cathedral !—a permanent provision was 
made in the shape of duties on all commodities imported at Yarmouth, the produce 
of this tax being applied, in fixed proportions, to the support of the haven and the 
improvement of inland navigation on the three rivers to which it forms an outlet. 
From this fund have been drawn the means of constructing on the southern side of 
the river’s mouth a pier which extends to a considerable distance into the sea; and 
a similar work is in progress on the north. 

In the accompanying engraving is shown the mouth of the Yare, and in that 
facing page 516, Yarmouth Quay. The town itself rose into importance soon after 
the Conquest, and has ever held a high place among the seaports of England. From 
its constant intercourse with its continental neighbors over the water, and also from 
its natural peculiarities, it has something of a Dutch air. The rows of trees planted 
along the beautiful quay, and the style of many of the earlier buildings, remind the 
traveller of Rotterdam. One old tower remains near the water, a remnant of the ancient 
fortifications. An elegant modern structure on the quay is called the New Hall, and 
is the scene of the mayor’s annual dinner, and of banquets and festive gatherings of 
the inhabitants. 

Standing, as it does, upon a huge sand-bank by degrees thrown up from the 
sea, the town is built in a singular manner, in accordance with the ground it occu- 
pies. Five long streets run through its length, intersected by more than a hundred 
and fifty narrow straight lanes or alleys, called “rows,” and one wide and hand- 
some street cut through in 1813. Before that time there was not a carriage-way 
crossing the town, except two lanes, one at each extremity of the town; for the 
“rows” the some of them, not over three feet wide, and six feet is their average 
width. . 

Dickens, who has immortalized Yarmouth in his “ David Copperfield,” represents 
the town as a vast gridiron, the bars being made by the “rows,” and his description 


is so graphic that we cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of quoting from it. “A 


row,” he says, “is a long narrow lane or alley, quite straight, or as nearly as may 
be, with houses on each side, both of which you can sometimes touch at once with 


the finger tips of each hand by stretching out your arms to their full extent. Now 


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special purpose, and which have been the cause of serious misunderstanding among 


“SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 513 


and then, houses overhang and join above your head, converting the row, so far, into 
a sort of tunnel or tubular passage. In some, there is little more than the blank 
walls for the double boundary; in others, the houses retreat into tiny, square courts, 
where washing and clear-starching are done, and wonderful nasturtiums and_ scarlet- 
runners are reared from that scarce commodity, vegetable mould. 

“Most of the rows are paved with pebbles from the beach ; and, strange to say, 


these narrow gangways are traversed by horses and carts, which are built for this 


antiquarians, as to whether they were or were not modelled after the chariots of the 


Roman invaders. Of course if two carts were to meet in the middle of a row, one 


of the two must either go back to the end again, or pass over the other, like goats 


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upon a single-file edge of a precipice. The straightness of the passage usually obvi- 
ates this alternative. A few rows are well paved throughout with flag-stones; carts 
are not allowed to enter them, and foot-passengers prefer them to the pebbly path- 
ways; hence, they are the chosen localities of many little shopkeepers. If you want 
a stout pair of hobnailed shoes; or a scientifically-oiled dreadnaught; or a dozen of 
bloaters, or a bunch of turnips, the best in the world; or a woollen comforter and 
night-cap for one end of your person, and worsted overall stockings for the other; 
or a plate of cold leg of pork, stuffed with parsley; or a ready-made waistcoat with 
a blazing pattern and bright glass buttons,— with any of these you can be accom- 
modated, in one or other of the paved rows.” | 

Of the cathedral town of Norfolk, dear old Thomas Fuller writes: “Norwich is 
(as you please) either a city in an orchard, or an orchard in a city, so equally are 
houses and trees blended in it.” It stands on the Wensum, one of the tributaries 
of the Yare, and this river our ancient chronicler characterizes as “so wanton that 
it knoweth not its own mind which way to go, such the involved flexures thereof 
within a mile of this city, as it runneth partly by, partly through it.” And though, 
as he adds, “it contributeth very little to the strengthening of the city,” it certainly 
very much increases its beauty. 

As we approach the city we discover traces of its walls, constructed for the most 
part in the thirteenth century. Originally they encompassed the whole city, except 
where it was defended by the river. Large fragments of them exist, and several of the 
towers, — all, however, in a very ruinous condition. Near Carrow Bridge (see engray- 
ing facing page 464) stand two on opposite sides of the river, between which a chain 
or boom used to be stretched. This bridge no longer retains the form in which it is 
here represented, having been converted into a drawbridge, to admit the passage of ves- 
sels, when Norwich regained the privileges of a port. 

In the engraving facing page 470, one of the towers above the bridge is repre- 


sented on a larger scale. For two centuries it has been quite neglected and has fallen 


514 ~ VOYAGES: AND TRAVERS 


slowly to decay, though composed of very durable materials, being principally con- 
structed of the hard black flints that abound in the chalk-beds of this district. It was 
surmounted by three small turrets, slightly projecting over the battlements, so that the 
warder or sentinel might command from them all the windings of the river. In the 
perfect state of this well-proportioned building they added much to its beauty, and in 
its dilapidated condition their remains heighten the picturesqueness of this interesting 
relic of the past. The origin of the name of this tower does not appear. It is sus- 
pected of being a modern imitation of an ancient practice, for no early writer calls it 
the Devil’s Tower, although the building itself is frequently referred to. 

The Ferry (see engraving facing page 478) is one of the loveliest spots in the 
old town. It belongs to the dean and chapter of Norwich, and is a much frequented 
passage from the close into the adjacent country. The adjoining arch was the water- 


gate of the ancient monastery; it is a plain, rude structure, formed of black flints, 


a crazy-looking pile, as seen from the river, the roughest bit of “ picturesque” 
now visible in Norwich, and as such sure to find a place in the sketch-book of every 
artist-visitor. The singularly low, flat arch, and the ruinous little tower, make a quaint 
enough picture. ‘This water-gate in its time guarded the entrance of a small creek, 
now quite filled up, by which probably the stone used in building the cathedral was 
conveyed to the spot. This convenience of water-carriage appears to have been an 
important consideration with founders of monastic establishments, and every right con- 
nected with it was always jealously maintained. Therefore to the little creek, — now, 
as we have said, filled up,— may have been due the selection of this spot for the 
site of the monastery which once was, and for the cathedral—one of the finest in 
England — which now is, the pride and glory of the town. 

The oldest part of the cathedral is as old as the see of Norwich itself. In 1094, 
a certain Herbert (unfortunate in his surname — Lozinga, or “the Liar”), Bishop of 
Thetford, having been deposed by reason of the dishonesties of various kinds which 
brought him his unflattering cognomen, made a pilgrimage to Rome, and effected a 
reconciliation with the Pope, and his own restoration to his episcopal dignity. On 
his return, probably wishing to start afresh, he transferred his see—as he had obtained 
permission to do— from Thetford to Norwich, made a purchase of land, and laid the 
foundation of his cathedral and palace, and of a priory for sixty monks of the Ben- 
edictine Order. Of the former he finished only the choir and tower. Succeeding 
bishops added the other parts of the church, and kept up repairs of damages which 
the tumultuous citizens of Norwich every now and then occasioned in their frequent 
contests with the monks. In 1361, Bishop Percy raised the spire, the height of which 
from the ground is three hundred and nine feet ; this may be said to have completed 
the edifice, as no subsequent works or repairs have materially altered its character. 


For the exterior, a distant view of the cathedral, especially that taken from the 


ft 


Dil 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 515 


Ferry, is the most impressive ; for, like too many of these magnificent structures, it 
is much surrounded and shut in by adjacent houses and various unsightly appendages. 
Seen, however, from a distance, the circular east end with its flying-buttresses, the 
noble tower and lofty spire, and the long transepts, form a striking and majestic com- 
position. Incongruities that somewhat mar the general effect when seen from a nearer 
point of view, do not then catch the eye, and the eastern end, which is turned toward 
the river, is indeed far the grandest. The tower is the loftiest and most elaborate of 
the Norman period remaining in England, and has an appearance of richness and solidity 


that is most admirable. ‘The spire is the loftiest in the kingdom with the exception of 


‘Salisbury, and is beautifully decorated with horizontal bands and richly crocketed angles. 


A most interesting secular structure is the old stone bridge, built by the Prior 
in 1275, to serve the monastery and give it ready communication with the episco- 
pal residence, kept in repair by the Prior and the bishop, and so coming down to 
modern times under the name of the higher dignitary of the two. The Bishop’s Bridge 
(see engraving facing page 490) seems to have taken the place of a narrow foot- 
bridge, probably of wood, which belonged to the see and the priory, and it became, as 
the city grew larger, so useful to the public, that, a century later, it was transferred to 


the citizens, and from that time maintained at their cost. In 1790, the gateway which 


stood on the bridge was taken down, and the structure was left as it now stands. 


From this bridge the Cathedral spire may be seen, rising high above the surrounding 


houses, and over opposite towers the ancient castle, the oldest structure in Norwich, 


dating from the days of the Conqueror. 


With ill-judged zeal this ancient structure has been entirely re-cased with stone 
within a half century. The old arcades and tracery have been copied, but the whole 
edifice has’ been hopelessly modernized in the process, and the distant view of the 
old castle is preferable to a nearer examination of it. 

The neighborhood of Norwich has many points of great beauty, the favorite resorts 
being the banks of the Yare, a few miles above the town, notably Thorpe, two miles 
from town. This pretty village was anciently part of the barony annexed to the 
see of Norwich, and the bishop had a residence there, now called the Old Hall (see 
engraving facing page 490), beautifully situated on the river. The antiquity of this 
structure, and the Gothic window of the decayed and desecrated chapel, half con- 
cealed by embowering foliage, will call to mind the remembrance of its former splen- 
dor, its festive hospitalities and religious rites, at the period when it was the scene 
of “princely pomp, and churchman’s pride.” An old church in the same village (see 
engraving facing page 520), and the grove at Potswick (page 524), also give fine 
glimpses of the beautiful scenery of the Yare. 

Not less attractive is the river Waveney, the southern branch of the Yare, a re- 


gion which Agnes Strickland has commemorated in pleasing verse. Its name seems to 


VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


i 


The Tower of London. 


have been derived from the Saxon Wafiend ca — “ way- 


ing, or troubled, water;” an appellation not now appropriate 


to the tranquil stream, but doubtless a very fitting designa- 


tion of the portion of the tumultuous estuary of which we have 
before spoken. In the upper part of this stream the level of the ground rises so. fast 
that, without the assistance of locks, it would be quite too shallow to be navigable. 
One of these locks, at the village of Shipmeadow, has furnished the subject for the 
engraving facing page 528. The rudeness of its structure, and simplicity of its con- 
trivances, contrast strikingly with the more skilful work of modern engineers ;_ but it 
is here in perfect keeping with the rustic scenery surrounding it, and adds a new 


element of the picturesque to the landscape. 


And now, what shall we say of London, the great and famous city, the “nation 
of London,” as De Quincey calls it? 


The two names which come first to our thoughts — the Tower and Westminster 


Engraved by George Cooke . 


Bese by JStarke ‘ 


YARIMOWTE QUAY, 


FROM THE BRIDGE. 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 517 


| Abbey — represent the most ancient period of the existence of London. One, in the 
far east, —the other, as its name implies, the early * West Church ;” one, the monu- 
ment of secular and martial power, —the other, of the ardent devotion of “the ages 
of faith;” the church forever keeping alive the memory of St. Edward the Saxon, 
King and Confessor,—the fortress an enduring monument to the Norman William: 
both in respect to their history so familiar to the general reader, that we need but 
name them, and call attention to the illustrations on this and the preceding page; and 


then, by way of contrast to these grand monuments of royal power and religious ardor, 


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Westminster Abbey. 


turn to one scarcely less imposing, telling of human sympathy for the suffering and 


love of man to man. We refer to the new St. Thomas’ Hospital, built 1868-71, on 


the Albert embankment, on the Surrey side of the Thames. 

The foundation of the hospital links it, however, to the past, —a past less remote, 
it is true, than that of which the minster and the fortress are the witnesses, but yet 
removed by more .than three centuries from our own day. During his brief reign, 


Edward VI. established this charitable institution and devoted to it the priory and 


518 


VOYAGES 


iW 
(ay 
= ee 


St. Thomas’ Hospital. 


AND TRAVELS. 


pursued its career of usefulness on the spot 
where the royal boy established it. 
In that year, however, one of the many 
railways which weave their mighty nets about 
London, required a little corner of the Hospi- 
tal estate. The intrusion was sanctioned by 
Parliament, and in a few years the unlucky 
patients of St. Thomas’ would have had an end- 
less succession of heavy-rumbling trains and 
shrieking engines passing, day and night, within — 
a few yards of their cots. Fortunately, how- 


ever, the governors of the hospital discovered 


te 


that, under a clause of a certain act of Par- 
liament, they could compel the railway to pur-— 


chase the entire estate. By arbitration, the 


amount fixed as its price was the enormous — 


sum of two hundred and ninety thousand 


pounds sterling,— about a million and a half — 
of our money. 
Furnished with these liberal resources, the 


directors of the Hospital, seeking their new 


location, bought a great tract of land, — eight ; 
. 
d 


acres and a half, two-thirds as much as the 


area covered by the Tower of London, —just 


across the river from the Parliament Houses, — 
on the southern bank of the Thames. Here 
this magnificent building, or rather series of 
buildings, — for the Hospital has been built on - 
the “pavilion ” plan, — was erected, and it now 
stands a very model of beauty, elegance, and 
convenience. Thousands of people visit the 
Tower and the Abbey, it is true, to one who 
goes to see the Hospital, and yet we cannot 
be wrong in saying that nothing in all Lon- 
don is more to be admired and honored than 
this grand provision for the alleviation of hu- 
man suffering. 


A great feature of the English metropolis: 


LONDON. 


} wes 


—, 


ox 


PARK. 


y 
A 


JAMES’ 


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fill 


oe a 
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* ’ = 
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520 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


is its chain of parks,— Hyde Park, the Green, and St. James’, which touch at the 
angles, and may be regarded as forming part of a space of uninterrupted pleasure- 
ground. Hach of them has its peculiar character. St. James’, lying among palaces, 
and from an early period surrounded by the fashionable residences of the West End, 
is the courtier; a few steps from the main avenues, and the visitor loses himself in 
exquisite sylvan retreats, like that of the picture on the preceding page, in which he 
can scarcely believe himself so near the paved streets and the stone buildings of mighty 
London. 

St. James’ Park was originally a mere appendage to the palace, and, though 
open to the public, a favorite resort of the king and court. Charles Il., we are told, 
spent much of his leisure here, and it was in this Park that his ways of playing 
with his dogs and feeding the swans, Colley Cibber tells us, “made the common people 
adore him.” 

All the London parks, except Kensington, which has preserved the symmetrical 
arrangement in which Queen Anne delighted, are laid out with great simplicity, in 
what is called the. English style: a natural or artificial stream, on which light skiffs are 
sailing about; a rustic pavilion here and there; tall and venerable trees standing 
quite apart from one another; flowers and ornamental plants on the edges and in 
groups 3 but, above all, extensive lawns of which the public is allowed the fullest 
enjoyment. If the turf grows worn in places, little portable fences are set up, which 
are always respected, and the soft moist climate of England, combined with the gar- 
dener’s care, soon restores the verdant velvet. 

Kensington Gardens are properly a portion of Hyde Park. The ground was 
originally purchased by William III., then laid out by Queen Anne, and a court end 
gradually gathered about them. Nowhere are to be seen more aged and venerable 
trees than those in Kensington Gardens, and their solitary seclusion has a look of 
the last century. 

Of all the places of out-of-door resort in the neighborhood of London, Kew is 
by far the most important and frequented. It is some six or seven miles from Charing 
Cross, and reached both by rail and steamboat. “It is the finest botanic garden in the 
world,” says a French author; and an Hnglish writer says: “The middle classes haye 
here, and strictly as their own property, one of the most expensive of modern re- 
finements, and one of the most delightful,—a Winter Garden. It is not called so,” 
he adds; “it was not in any way formed with such an object; but it is not the 
less true, and it happens thus: an immense proportion of the collection of plants 
requires either to be grown altogether or to be occasionally sheltered in glass houses; 
consequently there are some twenty of these structures at Kew, most of them hand- 
some, some very large, and one, the Palm House, so large and splendid that it forms 


in itself a magnificent Winter Garden.” 


vg 


we 


REE TH, 5 


HE We 
Hh duit 


i 


KENSINGTON GARDENS. 


LONDON. 


522 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


Since Kew first came into possession of the royal family, about 1730, when the 


Prince of Wales (the son of George IH. and father of George III.) took a long lease . 


— 
PSS 
S : 


dens an uninterrupted stream of 
floral and botanical wealth, 
The prince began by laying 
out the pleasure-grounds, — but 
died before their completion, 
and the princess-dowager con- 
tinued the work on a_ liberal 
scale. Sir W. Chambers was — 
called in as architect, and the ex- 
otic collection, which was destined 
to be the glory of Kew, was com- 
. menced. During the reign of George 
was s« UT. «Kew became the favorite royal resi- 
dence, and statesmen were busied with the im- 
provement of its gardens, especially Uord Bute, and 


that Duke of Argyle whom Horace Walpole calls 


) 
\ 


x e\ “the tree-monger.” 

ASSY All the expeditions of discovery of the last hundred 
years have incidentally remembered Kew, and have 
made it unrivalled in its collection of the flora of the 
southern hemisphere. In 1840, a change for the better 


took place in the management of the Gardens, when by 


a 
= 
* 


act of Parliament they were placed under the manage- 
ment of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, and 
from being a private royal garden, became a public, | 
national one. How great the change thus produced, 
may be seen by an entertaining passage from a letter 
written by Dr. Lindley, the person to whose endeavors 
this change was due. 

“Look,” he says, “at the state of things in former 
days. You rang at a bell by the side of a wooden 


gate, which of itself was perfectly emblematic of the 


secrecy, the unnatural privacy of the working principle 
Latania Borbonica. within. You were let in as if by stealth,—as if the 


gate-keepers were ashamed to see you come, or you yourself were ashamed to be seen 


\ 


_ there. 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 523 


And when you were there, you were dodged by an official, as if you were 
likely to carry off the St. Helena willow in your button-hole, or one of the smaller 
hot-houses in your waistcoat-pocket. You entered, unwelcome; you rambled about, sus- 
pected; and you were let out with manifest gladness at your departure. 

“ How gratifying is the contrast now! You go in by one of the most beautiful 


entrances that have been erected in modern times, whether we regard the effect of 


Cedar. Kew Gardens. 


‘the whole design, or the taste shown in the separate details. There is no unlocking 


of a dark door; you walk in freely. Turn to the left, you wander amid the more 
secluded scenery of the old gardens, until you reach the hot-houses and the adjacent 
beds. Or walk straight forward along the bold, broad promenade, immediately after 
you enter; visit the conservatory on your right, and at the end of this promenade 


turn to the left, and ramble along the still finer avenue adorned on either side by 


524 : VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


flower-beds, lawns, and shrubberies, and terminated by the great Palm-House itself. 
The student is free to enjoy access to all these daily increasing stores, and eyery 
person is free to enjoy the pleasure which the view of them cannot fail to confer.” 

The Gardens of Kew are divided into two distinct sections, —the Botanic Garden, 
properly so called, and the pleasure garden, or Arboretum. Both are laid out in the 
English style, but in the Botanic Garden the straight lime and the semicircle are noi 
absolutely banished. Here is a large pond, and here are the green-houses and mu- 
seums. Only the great Palm-House, or Winter Garden, is situated in the Arboretum. 

The invention of the hot-house is, we may say, the last refinement of the gar- 
dener’s art. Without the aid of these enclosed and covered parterres, with diapha- 
nous walls, we could cultivate in each climate only the flora proper to that climate, 
or to those very nearly resembling it. The beautiful plants of tropical and sub- 
tropical zones, and those of the southern hemisphere, would be known to us only by — 
description, and by the herbaria of botanic travellers. And hot-houses themselves would 
be impossible without glass, that wondrous material which has been in so many ways 
an indispensable and powerful auxiliary to civilization. The wealthy citizens of Rome, 
indeed, in the last days of the republic and under the Ceesars, had in their gardens 
little sheltered spaces covered with 
laminz of translucent stone, into which 
they withdrew, during cold nights and 
the stormy days of the winter, the del- 
icate Asiatic and Hgyptian plants which 
they reared carefully in vases placed 
upon marble efagéres. Hven after the 
early use of glass, the shelters con- 
structed were more like the hot-beds 
of a yegetable garden, than anything 
we deem worthy of the name of a 
green-house at the present day. 

It was not until the sixteenth, or, 
possibly, the fifteenth century, that any 
use was made of glass on a large scale, 


and these first hot-houses were orange- 


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pop) wine 


ries, in which orange, laurel, and myrtle 

EMER CCNA E trees were set for the winter, or fore- 
ing houses to bring forward by artificial heat the vegetables and fruits of summer. But 
with the explorations of the Portuguese, the Spaniards, the Dutch, and the Genoese, 


came home to English gardeners some notion of the vegetable marvels of the tropics, 


——S 


SQN 


INTERIOR OF HOT-HOUSE. KEW. 


526 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


and the desire sprung up to lodge these foreign wonders amid conditions that would | 
secure their complete development in so unfamiliar a climate. . 

Not until the beginning of the present century, however, has a taste for cuture- 
under glass really spread itself thoroughly among the higher classes of Europe, and been 
carried to a great height of luxury, especially in England and in Germany. The hot- 


houses of Kew, now twenty-one in number, are among the finest in the world. The 


eS 


Pape ad 


VA 


—— Bar , On; PELE ony) LZ 
ee ae es Bee PUNY De ee 
eae ee OEE BEES 
77 Ware e Be emee gabe: ~* LA oF 
a rv. oN 


Auraucaria Imbricata. Kew. 


largest of them is four hundred and eighty-two feet in length, and covers an acre 
and’ two thirds of ground. This is a temperate house, and has its roof removed 
during the summer.. It is devoted to the flora of the sub-tropical and temperate 
regions of the southern hemisphere. ' 

The great Palm House (see page 528), though not as large, is more remarkable. 


It consists, as will be observed, of a centre and two wings; the former a hundred 


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528 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


feet wide and sixty-six high; the latter, fifty feet wide and thirty high, and the length 
of the whole three hundred and sixty-two feet. It is heated by hot water which cir- 
culates in pipes, of which the whole length is twenty-four thousand feet. A gallery 
runs round the lofty central portion, which is reached by a very elegant circular 
staircase of iron, looking almost as light as the climbing plants which festoon it, 
adorning it, in their season, with some of the most superb of all known flowers. The 
color of the glass is an interesting novelty. The object desired was to admit all 
possible light, but to exclude the fiercest of the heat-rays. It had been found by 
experiment that these heat-rays alone caused the injury palms were found to suffer 
when exposed unshaded under glass, and the same method determined that a pale- 
yellowish shade in the glass was that which most effectually debarred passage to 


these heat-rays of highest temperature. Palms and plantains, banyans, the Caffre bread- 


ETN AANINY WN 
AN 
AERA 


Palm House. Kew. 


tree, the papyrus, and countless other splendid strangers from the tropics, adorn this 
great hot-house,—none more eccentric than the Latania Borbonica, (see page 523.) 

In the Fern House grow those great tree-ferns which are characteristic of the 
tropics, and recall the vegetation of an earlier geologic period. The Cyathea dealbata 
(page 524) is the tallest of its race in New Zealand, and is nothing less than a tree 
in height, while it has in every other respect the greatest similarity to the low growth 
of our woods of the northern temperate zone. 

Further up the river is Richmond, on the south bank, which rises )pehind the 
village into Richmond Hill. From this spot a beautiful view of the river (see page 
527) gives the traveller an entirely new idea of Father Thames. All the way through 
London it is the stream of crowded traffic, and too frequently its waters are muddy 


and unsightly; but higher up the old river-god becomes the patron of elegance, ease, 


4 
; “s 
~ a 


| 


i 


| 


| | 


| 


| 
i 


ved by W.Forrest. 


Ow LOCK, 


AID 


SOPH 


» 


\ 


(ON-IHE WAVENEY.) 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 529 


ll I tl 


| 
HU 


Ul il I | 


its gentle way through 
s/ a wide extent of dark-green waving woods ; through 


openings here and there we catch a glimpse of 


=. 


(@ cornfield, meadow, and rural homestead ; gray church- 
~ towers dot the distance, and give a tone of tranquillity 
and dignity to the landscape. In these woody retreats, 
one understands what is meant by “green England,” and would linger there for hours 
with no companion saye the tranquil deer or the timorous rabbit. Sir Walter Scott 
has a paragraph in his “ Heart of Mid-Lothian” well describing this charming scene. 
% They paused for a moment,” he says, “on the brow of the hill, to gaze on the 
unrivalled landscape which it presented. A huge sea of verdure, with crossing and 
intersecting promontories of massive and tufted groves, was tenanted by numberless 
flocks and herds which seemed to wander unrestrained and unbounded through the 


rich pastures. The Thames, here turreted with villas, and there garlanded with forests, 


530 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


moved on slowly and placidly, like the mighty monarch of the scene, to whom all its 
other beauties were but accessories, and bore on his bosom a hundred barks and 
skiffs, whose white sails and gayly fluttering pennons gave life to the whole.” 

Still further up the river is the old palace of Hampton Court, with its memories 
of Wolsey and of William III., of Queen Anne, and the first Hanoverian kings. In 
its present estate it is mainly a show-place, though a certain number of court pen- 
sioners are lodged in one portion of it. Its garden and grounds are open daily 
without restraint to the public, and its state apartments every day of the week except 
Friday, from ten till four or six, according to the time of year. The number of 


visitors is enormous,—ten thousand a week in summer, it is said. 


Bird’s-Eye View of Hampton Court. 


The old place belonged originally to the Knights of St. John, and was then the 
centre of a vast estate consisting of some thousand acres, lying on both sides the 
river. Here, in this wide sandy level, which the wintry floods of the Thames inun- 
dated and fertilized, where little corn was grown and rabbits were the chief habitants, 
lived a priest and a few of the humbler brethren of the Order, with no great store 
of the riches which made some of the wealthy Preceptories of St. John objects of envy 
to barons and burghers. 


This estate, in 1515, the proud Wolsey, then in his crescent fame and power, pur- 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 531 


chased of the Prior of St. John. The poor manor-house was taken away; the rank 
meadows which skirted the Thames were transformed into curious pleasnre-gardens; a 
great palace arose as if by magic at the bidding of the lavish and tasteful cardinal ; 
and here, two years later, he made his home, surrounding himself with the pomp of 
kings, and maintaining a state almost above that of his royal master. But the day 
of his triumph was short-lived; no later than 1526 he made his beautiful palace a 
peace-offering to that master whose jealousy and ire had already begun to blaze against 
him, and in 1530 it was at this very Hampton Court that Henry received the news 
of his disgraced favorite’s death at Leicester Abbey. From this time many of the 


Hampton Court. Wolsey’s Palace. 


important events of Henry VIIIs life are connected with Hampton Court, and the 
king built a new hall. 

Late in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, Paul Hentzner, visiting England, thus speaks of 
the palace: “The chief area is paved with square stones. In its centre is a foun- 
tain that throws up water, covered with a gilt crown, on the top of which is the 
figure of Justice, supported by columns of white and black marble. The chapel of this 
palace is most splendid, in which the queen’s closet is quite transparent, having its 
windows of crystal. We were led into two chambers, called the presence, or cham- 


bers of audience, which shone with tapestry of gold and silver, and silk of drfterent 


532 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


~ 


colors ; under the canopy of state are these words embroidered in pearl, ‘ Vivat Hen- 


ricus Octavus” In her Majesty’s bedchamber the bed is covered with very costly 
coverlids of silk. At no great distance from this room we were shown a bed, the 
tester of which was worked by Anne Boleyn, and presented by that lovely, accom- 
plished queen to her husband, Henry VIII. All the other rooms, being very numer- 
ous, are adorned with tapestry of gold, silver, and velvet, in some of which were 
woven history-pieces, in others Turkish and Armenian dresses, all extremely natural; ” 
and he adds in conclusion, “all its walls shine with gold and silver.” 

In the time of James I., Hampton Court was a favorite royal residence. Here 


Shakespeare’s company performed on a New Year’s day; and here, on the 14th of 


—s 


2 9 a= a 


—— 


Hampton Court. First Courtyard. 


the same month, King James held an assembly of the divines of the Church of HEng- 


land, and argued with them on rites and ceremonies and dogmas, and “peppered 


them soundly,”—in his own opinion at least ! 


‘ 


Charles I. spent a good deal of time here; and it was also a favorite residence 


of Cromwell and of Charles II. But to William III. the palace owes the great 
northern quadrangle, an enormous mass of apartments built in heavy brickwork, and 
somewhat incongruous with the earlier Tudor structure. Here William fell, while 
riding in the Park, and in this palace, a few days later, he breathed his last. 
Finally, Queen Anne and the first and second George held court here; and then 
the old place was neglected and solitary, until, in 1838, it was opened, as we have 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS 533 


Windsor Castle. 


said, to the public, who now throng its apartments, and 
wander and picnic at will in its noble park. 

Entering it from the west, the visitor comes first to 
that part of the palace which was the original Hampton 
Court of Wolsey, (see page 531.) Good taste has been at work 
here to obliterate the barbarous alterations of the Georgian era. The 

beautiful twisted chimneys, of which Wolsey left so many models, are restored; 
the square sash-windows have given place to the Gothic mullion and lattice, and the 
whole front is once more harmonious and picturesque. Passing through the gateway, 
we enter the first courtyard, a noble quadrangle in fine repair. The long rows of 
apartments on either side show how well able is this palace to accommodate visitors 
by hundreds, as it was required to do in Wolsey’s time; and it is quite interesting to 
thread the interior parallel passages, and see how ingeniously concealed were the kitch- 
ens and offices, where the needful work of the household was carried on within, while 


all the exterior had an air of elegance and repose. 


534 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


“a 

The entrance to the second court is by arched passages under the great Clock 
Tower, the central mass in the illustration, page 532. This building contains Henry 
VIil’s magnificent hall, reached by a broad staircase. This splendid room is in the 
finest order; tapestries as old as the time of Henry hang upon the walls; its noble roof 
has been cleaned, and gilded, and colored; gay banners float beneath its corbels; its win- 
dows have been filled with modern painted glass. This is all in good taste, and yet it 
is a little too fine and new to be entirely pleasing. One wishes for a few years’ smoke 
from one of the old-fashioned fireplaces, to give these bright things their proper mellow 
tone. 

A certain curious bit of sarcasm has found its place in the restoration of the 


painted windows. ‘The original windows were set in during the brief two years of 


Cascades. Virginia Water. 


Henry VIIL’s reign in which Anne Boleyn was queen, and» they exhibited every- 
where the arms and devices of her family united with those of the king. Mr. Wille- 
ment, to whom was entrusted the restoration, has satirically set forth in six alter- 
nate windows the pedigrees of Henry’s six wives, and in the intermediate ones the 
heraldic badges of the royal Bluebeard himself, and filled the west window with 
heraldic records in the same way, so as to make it quite a chapter in English his- 
tory. ‘This we must rather regret as being a little out of keeping with a faithful 
restoration of things just as they were. 

The second quadrangle, it will be seen, is a little smaller than the first, and the 


external architecture has been barbarized by Kent’s “improvements” in 1732. In this 


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SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 535 


sourt stands the chapel of which Hentzner spoke, but the splendors of its earlier time 
are quite gone, and it is mostly a patchwork of successive “ beautifiers.” 

The great third quadrangle is King William’s share of Hampton Court. Here 
are the state apartments of which the Picture Gallery is the most important, contain- 
ing several magnificent Holbeins, portraits; the famous Charles I. by Vandyke; Lely’s 
“Beauties of the Court of Charles II.,” of whom we, with our modern taste, can scarcely 


find one to admire; Kneller’s “ Beauties of the Court of Queen Mary,” as uniformly 


West Wycombe. Park. 


dull as their predecessors were uniformly coarse and impudent; then a room full of 
pictures by West; and last and best, the famous Cartoons of Raphael, the wonder 
and study of artists. 


Emerging from the palace, we stand to admire the scene before us. A broad 
terrace is bounded by the velvet of the lawn interspersed with parterres of gay flowers 
and fountains at regular intervals; the view terminates on each side by a quadrant of 


lime-trees and an inner quadrant of fine old yews, and, regularly placed, three grand 


536 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


avenues open before us. The central one consists of double rows of elms, and the 
space between them is a long and narrow sheet of water. To the south is a second 
avenue of the same kind of trees, and another to the north, terminated by the tower 
of Kingston Church. In the full luxuriance of their summer foliage, and with their ‘ 
stately height, these avenues of trees have no superior in England. 

At the southwest corner is the entrance to what is called the private garden, a 
very curious specimen of the old-fashioned, long neglected, but now once more appre- : 
ciated garden of a past age, with its raised terraces, formal flower-beds, and long, 
leafy arcades. 


But we have not yet seen all that the immediate neighborhood of London affords 


West Wilton. Park. 


in the way of palaces. Windsor (see page 533), crowning its hill-top, and waving 
from its highest point the flag which tells that the sovereign is in residence, has long 
dominated the landscape, and attracted the eye from miles away. 

We shall not enter upon a description of this palace, but limit ourselves to a picture 
from the magnificent park in which it stands (page 534). Windsor Forest, as it is 
called, —and indeed it is more rightly a forest than a park,—has been a delight to 


poets, from Shakespeare’s time to the present day. 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 537 


The landscape gardening at Windsor may perhaps have stimulated the public 
taste within the last century. Certain it is that many exquisite parks lie beyond the 
royal forest, and nowhere is water more elegantly employed than in the parks of 
Wycombe and West Wilton, not far from Windsor. 

One more picture from “ Merrie England,” and we bid adieu to the land of our fathers. 
This is Winchester, in Hampshire County, ten or twelve miles from Southampton, 
the great seaport of the south coast. ‘The old town contains two important and very 
ancient buildings, —the Cathedral, seen near the centre, in the accompanying engray- 
ing, and the Hospital of St. Cross, more in the background to the left. The cathe- 
dral has a look of great antiquity; its low, massive tower, its immense length from 
east to west, and the gray, ancient color of its walls, tell of a time and a civili- 
zation strangely differing from our own. An earlier structure, called St. Hthelwold’s 
Cathedral, was erected on this spot by the pious care of St. Hthelwold, in the tenth 
century, a very considerable portion of which yet remains ; indeed, it seems probable 
that most of the older building exists to the present day, forming the huge and _hid- 
den frame-work on which the sumptuous taste of Bishop Wykeham hung the more 
embroidered and delicate tracery of a later age. 

The tower is a noble specimen of the Anglo-N orman style, as perfect now as 
the day it was built. Its long, narrow, round-headed windows throw a generous light 
into the choir below. Viewed from without, the Cathedral of Winchester is entirely 
wanting in that grand pyramidal form which marks the Gothic. But it is a very 
museum of styles, from the early Saxon to the latest Gothic, and as such profoundly 
interesting to the student. The most striking feature of the building on the outside 
is its length, being from east to west five hundred and forty-five feet long. 

About a mile from the city, embowered in trees, stands the old Hospital, which, 
next after the Cathedral, is: the most interesting building in Winchester. This was 
founded in the early part of the thirteenth century, —the period at which the major- 
ity of religious houses .and charitable institutions came into existence,— by a bishop 
who was brother to King Stephen, and it seems to have been the prototype of our 
modern “Old Men’s Home,” being designed for the support of “thirteen poor men past 
their strength,” furnishing to them lodging, clothing, and a daily allowance of wheaten 
bread, meat, and ale. The visitor can almost believe that the old time has returned, 
to look in upon this little fraternity, for instance, on the anniversary of the birth 
of the founder, when collected around the ancient hearth of the refectory, robed in 
their long black garments, on which the silver crosses glitter in the light. 

The most interesting portion of the establishment, in an architectural sense, is 
the church, built in the reign of Stephen, containing some admirable specimens of 
Anglo-Norman architecture. It is built. in the form of a cross, with a stately central 


tower which is open to a considerable height above the vaulting of the nave, and 


538 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


gives light to the choir. The ponderous pillars, with their ornamentation still fresh 
and sharp-cut, tell of the early part of the twelfth century. Here and there Gothi 
encroachments have taken place, marking the dates at which additions were made to 
the original structure. The choir and some parts of the church are payed with 
glazed tiles,‘some of them ornamented with Saxon emblems, and here and there one 


is seen bearing the words “Have mynde.” 


ade”: 


But we have already lingered too long amid these fascinating relics of early days. ; 
England, with all its picturesque charms, its dear memories, its massive splendor, 
must not detain us. Somewhat more we are yet to see of our own land, and then 


our Picturesque Tour of the World is ended. . 


ae i 


as 
ae OS S| OS. 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 539 


UNITED STATES. 


SY A PICTURESQUE tour of our own country, how- 
LEMNDRE ‘ BAX \ \ ’ ever brief and rapid, will naturally begin with the moun- 
\ ' tains of New Hampshire, — the “ White Hills,” first men- 
tioned in print in 1672, by John Josselyn, in a quaint old book entitled, “New Eng- 
land’s Rarities Discovered.” | 
The group of mountains really consists of two ranges, the Franconia on _ the 
west, and the Mount Washington chain on the east. The accompanying engraving 
represents the former, looking northward from the Pemigewasset Valley. “The dis- 
tant notch,” says Starr King, speaking of this view, “does not yet show the sav- 
ageness of its teeth; but the arrangement of the principal Franconia mountains in 


half sexagon, so that we get a strong impression of their mass, and yet see their 


540 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


separate steely edges, gleaming with different lights, running down to the valley, is 


one of the rare pictures in New Hampshire. What a noble combination, —those keen 
contours of the Haystack pyramids, and the knotted muscles of Mount Lafayette 
beyond! He hides his rough head as far as possible behind his neighbor, but pushes 
out that limb which looks like an arm from a statue of a struggling Hercules, that 
some Titan Angelo might have hewn.” 

On the eastern side, the view in the depths of “the Glen,” which makes the 


head-piece to this chapter, — so deep 


of the mountain above it cannot 


be perceived, —is all that we have 


space to give. But from this east- 


= 2 : : : ern side, without doubt, — from the 
: = | little plateau at the foot of Mount 
‘Washington, where the Glen House 


stands, — is to be obtained the near- 


est and most satisfying view of the 


grander mountains of the New 


Hampshire group. 


Approaching Boston, the me- 


tropolis of New England, our artist 
has represented, in the beautiful 
engraving on the opposite page, a 


group of the buildings of Harvard 


University, including Memorial Hall, 


at the extreme right; Gore Hall, 


extending from the left towards the 


centre ; Appleton Chapel, of which 


the spire and the rear portion are 


- = seen in the background; and Weld 
Old Mill. Medford. Hall, at the extreme left of the 


picture. The college buildings in all number over thirty, beginning with plain old 


“ Massachusetts,” which was erected in 1718, and ending with the stately Gothic 


structure, erected 1870-76, at the cost of half a million dollars, wherein the alumni 
of Harvard have expressed their love and honor for the memory “of the sons of 
Harvard who perilled and laid down their lives to preserve us as a nation.” 

The Memorial Hall consists of three main divisions; the central division or tran- 
sept, under the lofty tower, being finished with great elegance, and haying twenty- 


eight marble tablets inlaid into the walls, bearing the names of the graduates or 


in the forest that the great shoulder 


— 


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CAMBRIDGE. 


HARVARD COLLEGE. 


542 | VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


students of the University who fell in the war of the rebellion. The section at the 
left is a long nave, sixty feet in height from the floor to the apex of the roof, 
adorned with pictures and statues, and occupied as the dining-hall of the college. 
The section at the right, known as the Sanders Theatre, is a beautiful auditorium 
capable of seating fifteen hundred persons, and used for lectures and concerts as 
well as for fhe literary festivals of the college. 


Gore Hall was erected in 1841, and greatly enlarged in 1876-7, the better to 


accommodate the magnificent library 


— numbering, in January, 1878, one 


hundred and seventy thousand yol- 


umes — which is lodged here; Ap- 
pleton Chapel, built of light sand- 


stone, with richly-stained windows, 


was dedicated in 1858, and serves 


for the daily devotional exercise and 


the Sunday services of the college; 
and, lastly, Weld Hall, erected in 
1872, is one of the finest and most 


spacious of the college dormitories. 


To the lovers of antiquity, two 


very interesting structures in the 


neighborhood of Boston are the 
Old Mill, or Powder House (see 
page 540), which stands on a little 


eminence near the high-road, a few 


miles out of the city on the north- 
east; and the old Cradock Mansion, 
at Medford, known as the “Old 
Fort.” 

The quaint old tower is about 
thirty feet high and fifteen in di- 
ameter at its base. Originally a windmill, and owned by one Mallet, who did much 


Cradock Mansion. Medford. 


profitable business in grinding his neighbors’ corn from three adjacent counties, it was 
sold in 1747 to the province for a powder-magazine ; in 1774, was plundered by Gen- 
eral Gage; in 1775, it became the powder-magazine of the American army before Bos- 
ton, and remained in the use of the state until a half a century ago, when the maga- 
zine at Cambridgeport was erected, and the old tower passed again into private 


ownership. 


The old Cradock Mansion is of much greater antiquity than the mill, whose date 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 


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Near Calicoon, on the Erie Railway. 


is fixed with some uncertainty at or near 1720. But the Cradock House was undoubt- 


edly erected about 1634, at which time a large grant of land was made to Matthew 
Cradock, first governor of the Massachusetts Company in England. Oddly enough, this 


same governor never set foot in America, or saw the. house which to this day bears 


544 VOYAGES AND TRAVETS. 


his name; but it was built by his agents, or “servants,” as they were styled, who 
founded the plantation by the river Mystic, and carried on an extensive colonial trade. 
It is a brick house, with walls half a yard in thickness; heavy iron bars secured 
the arched windows at the back; the entrance-door was encased in iron; and a single 
pane of glass set in iron, placed in the back wall of the western chimney, overlooked 
the approach from the town. “Standing for a century and a half,’ says Drake, “in 
the midst of an extensive and open field, enclosed by palisades and guarded with 
gates, a foe could not approach unseen by day, nor find a vantage-ground from which 
to assail the inmates.” “The handiwork of the first planters in the vicinity of Bos- 
ton,” says the same author, “one of the first, if not the very first of the brick houses 
erected within the government of John Winthrop, this house, a unique specimen of 


the architecture of the early settlers, must be considered a gem of its kind.” 


East and West Branches of the Delaware. 


Every reader must join with this enthusiastic antiquary in the wish he expresses 
that the house should be carefully restored and set in order, and “allowed to stand 
where it has stood for near two hundred and forty years.” 

Leaying New England, we glance at the Empire State, whose capital, Albany, 
xnd Schenectady, a fine old city on the Mohawk, are represented in the accompany- 
ing steel engravings. To form an idea of the varied and beautiful scenery of New 
York no way perhaps is better than to follow one of the great railway lines crossing 
it from east to west,—the Erie road, for instance, which, from New York city to 
Niagara Falls, a distance of four hundred and forty-four miles, passes through one 
long, enchanting panorama, filling the eye with ever new delight. The first three 
hours of this journey take the traveller through a region of wonderful richness and 
fertility of soil, past farms which are famous all the country over for their produce, 
and an exquisite luxuriance of woodland, with every shade of green and every variety 


of foliage. 


7 revi 
anny 


2\ 


<< 
oan 


THE STARUCCA VIADUCT. 


546 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


Further on, however, 
comes the grander scene- 
ry. — the Delaware, with 
its devious windings far 
below. and the Palisades 
of the Delaware, rising 
high and rugged against 
the sky. In some places, 
the abrupt cliffs descend 
to the water’s edge, so 
that one wonders at the 
engineering skill which 
found a place for the 
road: in others, the river 
has left deposits of rich 
alluvial soil, where tall 
trees have grown, ana 


fresh green meadows 


afford abundant pastur- 


age to cattle. Such is 
the neighborhood of Cal- 
icoon, near the Pennsyl- 
vania border (see page 
543), and such also is 


the scene where the east 


and west branches of the 


Delaware (see page 544), 
two mountain streams, unite to form the 


stately river which, after its long and _ fertil- 


izing course, presently falls into Delaware Bay, 


and so into the mighty ocean. 
A few miles beyond this point the railway 
makes a loop into Pennsylvania, and it is here 


a= that we come upon that majestic viaduct which 


==} Cropsey employs as the salient feature in his 


famous picture, “ An American Autumn.” The 


Watkins’ Glen. 


Starucca Viaduct spans a great valley near 
the town of Susquehanna, with its eighteen arches of solid masonry, each fifty feet in 


width. The length of this great bridge is twelve hundred feet, and its height a 


547 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 


Yaz — — SN 
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zs 


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WSS aD = : = SSSSEN 


( 


SSN 


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ne 


We 

AUN 

a ee) tae on ae) sa P= ger eS 
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= Sette ee oo g 
Pe go a oer eer 
yer See SS aun) So Ss mM 

a: epee a seat 2 fee: 
es Sit ae ee ie ee ae 
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poh is 05 ee pei Toa ee 
Se hea aa wooed ere teerinas | 
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epithe rstemee Cotati Gaeta 
ate So as ce 
Sa ae) er vege tO Cet ah ae 
oases eel oes gar es a) Sa 8 
is a) Go mesa cant ccna a es P 
sk Bao CSOGE SS 
s ¢sec sa Tie ete ae) 
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to 


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acted by the 
h dashes a clear little 


sol 


2 


atti 


are 
ft: in the 


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we 
1 


it 


ate, 
ar 


st 
irregul 


Portage Falls and Bridge. 
eat 


ough the 


gr 


1] 
thr 
a 


ski 
d 
ge 546), 
at the bottom of wh 
‘ds. In the home of this water-nymph it is always 


stwar 


industry and 
ay we 


row 
ix hundred feet, 


ing ou 


ntless falls and rap 


mu 


stream in cou 


Still cont 
fame of Watkins’ Glen (see pa 


tic and triumphant, telling 
the depth of five or s 


its proud story of human 


> 


548 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


cool, even at high noon of the warmest summer day, and the traveller follows with 
delight the series of alcoves, stairways, and bridges, each ending in some delightful 
surprise, with some fresh beauty beyond it, till he has gone so far down, that die 
little narrow strip of blue sky looks strangely far and remote above his head. Some- 


what dangerous, too, are these dripping steps and narrow paths; but all precious 


things have their price, and one does not pay too dearly for a ramble in this lovely 


= F iI ni t STi i my 5 } S 
e : : aS } TNA | glen, by the mo- 
a Ais ANS Sane ; 
| ewes ale ANON | Want ment’s alarm with 
x 3 z g = :l iy ; Zn SUI = tes t Bh WN | Nil i = | a 
SG ee | ve which every now 
: => i apliail Ee AINA Z i = joss 
3 = SS : & NS x & yf . 
c = Salty, as Wat ili. C7 Awa and then he clings 
— = yu f\ / ——— =H ew) ~ 
SS ea hall s VA es alts NP *]: 
eos a ey | | TY) imc hi to the railing, and 
E 3 a mall} SSS MANGA SE AAHE HUN a AA SSS 
BE Sees = / | AE Sa x SPEECH sie, \ ‘ i 
eA ee a j SHA pe Sa BERS ~ steadies himself 
ME a Sap Z ae MENS Hi ANN WAI) HUAN VA A , 
Ne af RGA Neue upon the slippery plank. 
k ‘pee Three miles further is another 


exquisite bit of woodland and 


Mh 


water, the Havana Glen (see page 


SAAN 


549), by no means so grand as its 


more famous neighbor, but with a 


fine delicate charm of its own. 


About seventy miles before 
reaching Niagara, the road crosses 
the Genesee (see pages 547 and 
548), which at this point leaps 


ie We RCP WED A in three falls to the level of the 
: ed NN Ne Ex’ valley below. The great bridge is eight hundred 
ay Se eee Zy-e= feet long, a marvellous structure, so ingeniously 
a aie 2 = planned that any single timber in it can be removed 
WEN en eee “§ and replaced at pleasure. 
cf” OMS, ees on. 
IE le ee BS ae The walls of the ravine are nearly four hun- 
a 2 oy 4 ‘S 3 ~HVS 
Rog eG (SRS NS 
cx! FG Ress 2 = F > = 


“he eg |S iS SOE a dred feet in perpendicular height, and the effect is 


Portage Falls and Bridge. strange indeed as one looks down upon the river 


ee see (wat i ’ ’ r ae 
MM ibile fh! : 7 


\ wees 


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SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 549 


-and the canal, each making its way down the valley,—the stream with its three leaps, 
ana the canal with its level surface and prosaic locks. Hach of the three falls is well 
worth seeing. ‘The upper, or Horse-shoe Falls, are about seventy feet high; the middle 
falls, about a quarter of a mile down the river, are over a hundred feet in height; then, 
for two miles beyond, the river winds between perpendicular walls of rock, at last 
finding a precipitous stairway, down which it plunges, disappears for a moment under 
a shelving rock, is compressed into a narrow pass fifteen feet wide, makes another 
leap ot twenty feet, and then drops into a deep and shady pool, whence it quietly steals 
away, as if fatigued with all its frolics. 

A poetic mind naturally com- 
pares this valley — charming with 
its lofty banks and rocky walls, 
its retinue of waterfalls and cas- 
cades, varying in size and in every 
detail of beauty — with the grand 
and simple majesty of Niagara, 
to which we at last come: a scene 
of which so much has been writ- 
ten both in verse and prose, that 
we hesitate to do more than call 
attention to the admirable illustra- 
tions in which our artist has rep- 
resented this grandest of natural 
wonders (pages 550, 551, and 552), 
and to add a few facts which may 
aid imagination in completing the 
picture. 

The river Niagara, which is 
but thirty-three miles long, in that 
short distance accomplishes a de- 
scent of three hundred and thirty- 
tour feet, and when we consider 


tnat through its comparatively nar- 


row channel the waters of the four 


great upper lakes are poured on 


their way to the St. Lawrence, it is Havana Glen. 
not to be wondered at that the Falls of Niagara present the stupendous spectacle that 
all the world admires. About sixteen miles from Lake Hrie, the current of the river 


grows narrow aud becomes extremely swift; this is the commencement of the Rapids, 


=| 


650 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. — 


which continue for about a mile, making a descent of fifty-two feet. Then comes the 
cataract itself, a plunge of a hundred and sixty-four feet on the American side and a 
hundred and fifty on the Canadian; the sweep of water being divided by Goat Island, 
a rocky ledge a thousand feet wide, which leaves the American fall a breadth of eleven 
hundred feet, and the Canadian nearly double that width. 


The Canadian fall is the famous Horse-shoe, its curve 


Sz | extending up the central part of the current. Its 


=e waters, sweeping down with immense rapidity, 


—s make a great leap clear from the rocky wall 


= ==: =. over which they plunge, and the space be- . 


tween this sheet of water and the rock 


= of a friable texture, and eroded by the 


ceaseless action of the spray. This 
forms the “Cave of the Winds,” entered 
from the Canadian side, and leading by 


a rough and slippery path towards Goat 
~ ‘Island. 
From below the falls the slope 


22 


=z 


S—— 


i NG = ; P ‘ | 
| i *. continues, descending in the next seven 
\\s 


Ny 
iif 


miles a hundred and four feet, 


and the rocky chasm which makes 


the bed of the river contracts to 


less than a thousand feet. On each 


side the rocky walls rise almost 


perpendicularly from the water’s 


edge, rude stairways leading 


down at different points from 
the top of the cliff to the water 


below. Across this tumultuous 


water, a little ferry-boat takes 


its course, carrying one almost 
to the foot of the falls. Two 


miles below the cataract, the 


great Suspension Bridge spans 
the chasm, a length of three 
oes hundred and fifty feet, the rail- 
Prospect Point, Niagara. way track above, and a carriage-road 


and footpath twenty-eight feet below. 


widens near the bottom, the strata being 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 55) 


American Fall. 


A mile below the bridge the river bends to the Canadian side, and the rocky 


it into a width of scarcely more than two hundred feet. 
om this, the stream finds a very 


walls crowd Here are the 


Whirlpool Rapids, represented on page 555; emerging fr 


552 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


deep channel, and its enormous bulk of water flows platidly and slowly, constantly _ 
excavating deeper and deeper in the soft strata which forms its bed. 

A peculiar feature of Niagara Falls is the constant change that is taking place 
in its rocky walls, especially in the barrier over which the great cataract makes its leap. 
In 1818, great fragments were broken off on the America side, and in 1828, on the 
Canadian, shaking the country with the mighty shock as of an earthquake. <A still 
more memorable change took place at some time unknown, but since the year 1678, 
when the Jesuit Father Hennepin visited the falls, and described them, accompanying 
his account with a rude sketch, the accuracy.of which is, ho'vever, undoubted. In this 
earliest representation of the great cat- 
aract— which since has furnished a 
theme for inr wmerable artists — is rep- 
resented a thid fall, from the Canadian 
side towards the east, across the line 
of the main fill, and caused by a 
huge mass of rock that turned the 
divided current /n this direction. In 
1750, a Swedish traveller, who visited 
the falls, alludes to the former exist~ 
ence of this rock, mentioning that i 
had fallen a few ‘ears before. It is 
quite certain, therefore, that great 
changes have takei.: place here, the 
general effect of which has been t¢ 
carry the falls up tle river towards 
Lake Erie. <A recession of fifty yards 


in forty years has been a_ popular 


estimate, but is regarded by Sir 
Charles Lyell as an exaggeration. This great authority is of opinion that a foot a 
year may be regarded as a probable conjecture. The character of the strata is such, 
however, that the cutting action must vary greatly by periods, according as the rock 
presented is the hard Niagara limestone, or the soft shales and marls of the Onondaga 
salt group. All the strata are so tilted that they slope down against the current of 
the river at a rate of about twenty-five feet in a mile. Through these sloping layers 
the river has probably cut its way back, receding most rapidly when, as is now the 
case, the lower portion of the cutting was composed of soft beds, which, being worn 
away, let down the harder strata lying above them; and less rapidly when the harder 
rock lay at the base. The effect of this continued recession naturally is to diminish 


the height of the falls, both by the rise of the river’s bed at their base, and the low- 


i 


iit! 


| 


ai LAAN TAT AN 
pe ee 
eae | ! | i 


| 


| 


NM 


i i ipl 


| hi 


FLAT-BOATING ON THE SUSQUEHANNA. 


554 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


ering of the rocky barrier over which the water plunges. As has been said, the present 
recession is more rapid than the average, and will continue so, until the falls have 
retreated two miles further up the river, at which time they will encounter a solid 
barrier of massive sandstone along their whole extent, which will at that time have 
been reduced to a height of eighty feet. 

Returning towards the sea-coast, we will take our way through the adjacent state 
of Pennsylvania, and will suppose ourselves following the great line of the Penn- 
sylvania Railway crossing the state from west to east. And here, we find some of 
the finest scenery east of the Rocky Mountains. Crossed from north-east to south- 
west by the great Alleghany range, the “ Keystone State” sends countless tributaries 
westward into the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers, which, uniting at Pittsburg to 
form the Ohio, make their way at last to the* far-off Gulf of Mexico,— while from 
the eastern slope of its mountains it sends the Delaware and the Susquehanna towards 
the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. ) 

The illustration on this page represents the Alleghany in the neighborhood of 
) Freeport, where the scenery well 
justifies the appellation “The beau- 


tiful river,” given to this stream by 


the early French explorers. For 


the greater part of its course the 


Alleghany flows, not through a 
broad valley, like most other riv- 
ers, but in a great ravine from one 
to four hundred feet below the 
- level of the adjacent country. The 
scenery is in some places wild 
and rugged, but more generally is 
picturesque and_ beautiful. The 
steep hills are clothed with forests, 


making vast walls of verdure be- 


of the river, now singing over 
% pebbly slopes, now sleeping in cool, 
' deep pools. 
One of the most beautiful affiu- 
ents of the Alleghany is the Cone- 


— 


The Alleghany at Freeport. . 
peineyivgateeieee railway runs, and then crosses the 


river at the base of the western slope of the mountains. The railway bridge, a beautiful 


maugh, along whose south bank the 


— 


. 


tween which glide the limpid waters. 


—— 


ees 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 555 


arch, is represented in the illustration on page 566, and the enchanting narrows of the 
river, known as the Pack-Saddle, in the illustration on page 557. This is one of the 
finest examples of the peculiarly beautiful scenery of central Pennsylvania. Long, narrow 
ridges parallel to each other, after running many miles in straight lines, suddenly curve 
together, varied by the occasional termination of one of them, upon the plain of the 
valleys that lie between. The rivers and roads follow the long lines of the valley, 
finding their passage across from one to the other by occasional gaps, and by the ends 
of the ridges. 

Magnificent forests clothe these slopes, varying in character at different points, 
but always beautiful and luxuriant. Towards the north, on the better soils of the 


mountains, the hard-wood forests prevail,— the fine sugar-maple of the curly and bird’s- 


eye varieties, its wood harder and closer than that of the more southern growth, and 


Whirlpool Rapids below Niagara. 


its dense foliage a solid mass of the most vivid green. Equally abundant is the white 
birch, the tree which supplied the Indians with bark in a single sheet for their canoes. 
Here also are the ash and beech in their highest perfection, attaining a growth quite 
unknown on lower ground. 


Upon the poorer lands, and along the ravines of the mountains, the “black 


growth” flourishes, the evergreens, in great variety,— spruce, hemlock, cedar, fir, and 
the feathery larch. Varieties of oak appear further south upon the range, the chestnut 
and the cherry-tree, and, for flowery shrubs, are endless thickets of the kalmia or moun- 
tain laurel, and the beautiful rhododendron, with its large glossy leaves and clusters 
of white flowers. 

And now the road steadily ascends, through a mining and lumbering country of 
great wealth and industry, until, fifty-two miles beyond Conemaugh, it crosses the 


ridge of the Alleghany Mountains through a long tunnel, at an elevation of over two 


556 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


thousand feet. The descent on the eastern side is through a region of wonderful 
grandeur and beauty, as, with a grade of ninety feet to the mile, it runs down to 
Altoona, at the eastern base of the main Alleghanies. Perhaps the most imposing 
feature of this road — worthy the artist’s pencil at every rod—=is the great Horse- 
shoe Curve, represented on page 558, by which the road crosses two rayines on a 
high embankment, cuts away the point of the mountain dividing them, and sweeps 
around the stupendous mountain wall into a more tractable pass. ‘The sides of this 
curve are parallel to each other, and the sight of other trains in motion upon the 
double track frequently adds to the picturesqueness of the general effect. 

A great curiosity of the valley next east of Altoona is Sinking Creek, which 


issues from the Arch Spring, represented below, and then proceeds to 


lose itself in the ground, and reappear, time after time, as it flows 


S 


onward. It is visible at the bottom of huge openings in the » 
BS 


ground hundreds of feet in depth, then reappears on 
the surface for a short distance, only to plunge at last 
into a cave, through which, for nearly a quar- 
ter of a mile, it flows in a current twenty 
feet wide. Suddenly the cave 
widens, the creek makes an abrupt 
angle, and plunges into a chasm, 
wherein the waters boil and foam 
with terrific fury. Sticks and large 
pieces of timber are immediately 
carried under and never reappear, 
nor has any outlet been discoy- 
ered for the waters themselves. 
At Mill Creek (see page 570), 
twenty-five miles nearer the ocean, 
the Juniata, which the road has 


followed for some distance, has 


assumed considerable size and im- 
portance ; and, just beyond, at 


Jack’s Narrows (see page 572), 


Sinking Spring, near Tyrone. 
Pennsylvania Railroad. 


forces its way through a_ gorge 
wild and rugged, the mountain-sides, «s39a9as 
almost destitute of vegetation, exposing great masses of sombre gray rock. This 
mountain takes its name from a mysterious hunter and Indian trader, who made it his 


home here before the Revolutionary War. His name was Jack Anderson, and colonial 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 557 


records tell that here he, with his two servants, were murdered by the Indians, whom 
he had long baffled and cheated. 

From this point on, the Juniata gains steadily in magnitude and tmportance, 
until at Duncannon it falls into the Susquehanna, and we perforce leave it, follow- 
ing the larger stream some forty miles, then striking off eastward for Philadelphia. 

But we cannot leave the beautiful blue’ river without a word, since we have fol- 
lowed it from its source among the mountains, and one acquires a particular affection 
for a stream when one has known it from its babyhood. Massiveness, softness of out- 


line, and variety, have been the characteristics of its scenery. The miniature river, 


In “The Pack-Saddle.” Pennsylvania Railroad. 


in its course of a hundred miles, has overcome multitudes of obstacles. Against 
some it has dashed resolutely, and cut its way through. Others it has escaped, 
creeping stealthily around through secret valleys and secluded glens. Every hour of 
the day and every change in the weather has given it new beauty. 

What the Susquehanna can bring us we accept with a different regard. It is 
a broad, shallow stream, its course much broken by rapids, usually not navigable, 
but in the spring much timber comes down in the form of rafts, and, so long as 
the amount of water renders it possible, flat-boats are propelled along its uncertain 


current. At high noon nothing can be more prosaic than this portion of the river; 


558 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


but all things have their favoring hour, and in the twilight, or at early morning, as our 
artist has represented it (page 576), even the Susquehanna below Harrisburg has its 
tranquil beauty, and its charm of color and atmospheric effect; while some of its lesser 
affluents, like Wild Cat Brook (see page 566), come dancing down to meet it with 
all the airy movement of the wildest mountain streamlets of the Alleghanies. 
Between Harrisburg and Philadelphia, Chester Valley (page 560) is the most attrac- 
tive region, both for its historical associations and its fruitful luxuriance of vegetation. 
The county of the same name is one of William Penn’s three original counties, named 


by his friend Pearson in memory of the English Chester. Here Wayne raised a regi- 


Horse-shoe Curve, Alleghany Mountains. 
Pennsylvania Railroad. 


ment for the Revolutionary War; the rich valley furnished most of the supplies for 
the American army operating in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, and hither Wash- 
ington sent his sick and wounded. Here, too, in the War of the Rebellion, was estab- 
lished a great hospital, which did good service to the brave and suffering defenders 
of the country. 

Chester Valley is from two to four miles wide, crossing the county from south- 
east to north-west. It is shut in by low ranges of hills, generally densely wooded, 


and it contains some of the finest farms in the state. 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 559 


Fifteen miles more of rapid railway travelling brings us to the great city; and 
what can we see in so short a time as is allowed us, with the close of our pic- 
turesque tour so near at hand? Perhaps to most of us, Philadelphia, since 1876, 


has been chiefly before our minds as the scene of the Centennial Anniversary, and 


aN Ay, 


Af 
‘o, tf 


The Juniata. 


the Centennial Buildings would be our main object of interest in the famous “ City 
of Brotherly Love.” First among them, the great Main Building (see page 562), with 
its eighteen hundred and eighty feet of length, its four thousand tons of rolled iron, 
its two hundred and forty thousand square feet of glass, and more than a million 
square feet of tin roofing. The height of this building may be said to be one story, 


although the elevations of the roof are at different altitudes, varying from forty-eight 


560 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


feet at the eaves, to seventy in the centre of the building. Three transepts break 
the great length of the roof, and within the main transept are four great towers, 
over a hundred feet square, and rising above the roof to the height of a hundred 
and twenty feet. ‘I'he interior of these towers is accessible by stairways, and sup- 
ports a series of light galleries handsomely decorated, whence splendid views of the 
interior of the building and of the Park may be obtained. The east, west, and 
centre of the fronts of the building are relieved of the monotony incident to so vast 
an extent, by central projections with galleries and towers, and towers at the corners 


seventy-five feet from the ground. The Main. Building — or Industrial Hall, as it was 


Chester. Pennsylvania, 


also named — was devoted to objects connected with manufactures, metallurgy, mining, 
education, and science. 

Then, the beautiful Horticultural Hall (page 561), a very marvel of airy elegance, 
built in the Moorish style, its main entrance at the extreme right crowned with a 
low dome, and its side entrances flanked by the arched roofs of the Conservatory. 
This building is so peculiar in appearance that it commands particular attention and 
admiration. It is a substantial and fire-proof structure, three hundred and eighty feet 
in length, and in height to the top of the lantern, seventy-two feet. A central 
Conservatory occupies the main floor, ornamented with fountains, and a_ beautiful 


arcade, with arches of red, black, and white brick supporting a narrow gallery. 


ee 


aa wer, a 


—S eee eh 


| 
. 


PHILADELPHIA. 


parer 


HORTICULTURAL HALL, CENTENNIAL GROUNDS. 


562 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


Lastly, Memorial Hall, or the Art Gallery (page 563), the finest structure in the Cen-— 


tennial Grounds. Symmetrical, massive, and imposing, it rises from its terraced height, 
saa gE AGN GUANA overlooking the Schuylkill, which spar- 
| | kles on its way a hundred feet below. 
In the construction of this building 


no wood was employed, the materi- 


als composing it being granite, brick, 


glass, and iron. Its length is three 


hundred and sixty-five feet, and the 


above the ground, being capped by 


a colossal bell, on which stands an 


emblematic figure of Columbia, cast, 


in zinc. Between the arches of the 


great triple doorway are clusters of 


columns terminating in emblemati¢ 


Philadelphia. 


designs illustrative of science and art. 


Colossal sitting figures crown the cor- 


nice. The interior doors are of iron 


and bronze, richly ornamented, the 


walls are decorated with bas-reliefs, 


and the floors are laid with marble 


tiles. 


Proud may Philadelphia well be 


of her Centennial structures, and of 


s=== 
— SS 
SS 


all the enterprise and talent dis. 


Main Building, Centennial Grounds. 


played in them; and yet a grander 


fame, perhaps, lingers about her Lau- 
rel Hill, the beautiful woodland cem- 


etery not far distant, where the marble 


shaft whiter than snow, the gray-veined 


granite of American quarries, the red- 


brown granite of Scotland shining 


like a mirror, rise from the soft green 


lawns, — from the very midst of flow- 


er-beds, — from under the shade of the 


great oaks and beeches, and pines, 


ANI 


bearing names of the honored dead 
who in their life-time did their share in making their city what she is. 


dome rises a hundred and fifty feet 


== 


PHILADELPHIA 


CENTENNIAL GROUNDS. 


MEMORIAL HALL, 


564 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


With the Schuylkill flowing as it does between the city and its great suburb, 
West Philadelphia, bridges over the river are a matter of necessity. The old Mar- 
ket-Street Bridge was long the only one, a solid and costly structure, but possess- 
ing few characteristics of beauty. Of the several more recent works of this kind, 
the one erected at Fairmount (see page 565), to take the place of the old “wire: 
bridge,” is the most noticeable. The entire length of the superstructure is about 
twelve hundred feet ; the span crossing the river, three hundred and fifty. 

One more of Pennsylvania’s beautiful landscapes, and we turn southward. ‘This 
is the far-famed Delaware Water-Gap (page 567). Wild streams from the Catskills, 


uniting after many miles of forest journey, form the Delaware, which for a hun- 


Laurel Hill. 


dred and fifty miles winds its mazy way, making the boundary between New Jer- 
sey and Pennsylvania, then turns suddenly to the eastward, and cuts through the great 
Blue Ridge, in a narrow gorge two miles long, between walls of rock sixteen hun- 
dred feet high, and so closely crowded together that there is scarcely room for the 
road along the river-bank. 

And now we come to Virginia, whose wilderness of beauty and grandeur must 
be represented only by the two steel engravings — Harper’s Ferry, and the Natural 
Bridge. | 

Harper’s Ferry, once called Shenandoah Falls, is situated on the northern border 


of Virginia, at a point where the Shenandoah and Potomac unite and force their 


Da 4 Bi co 
a a) Ve, 
am ’ F 


-_ 
Un 4 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 565 


passage through the Blue Ridge. The village is picturesquely built around the base 
of a hill, and united by a bridge to the opposite bank of the Potomac. 

In respect to the Natural Bridge, situated in Rockbridge County, a short sketch 
only is necessary, so well does the picture represent the scene. The description of 
Jefferson first attracted the attention of travellers to this remarkable spot, unequalled 
probably in the world.. Of recent descriptions the best is that by Miss Martineau, 
which is so characteristic and interesting that we can add nothing to it, except to 
say that its height above the water, on the upper side, is two hundred and forty 
feet. ; 

“At a mile from the bridge the road turns off through a wood. While the stage 


Bridge near Fairmount. 


rolled and jolted along the extremely bad road, Mr. L. and I went prying about 
the whole area of the wood, poking our horses’ noses into every thicket, and be- 
tween any two pieces of rock, that we might be sure not to miss our object; the 
driver smiling after us whenever he could spare attention from his own not very 
easy task, of getting his charge along. The trees were of enormous height, real 
patriarchs of the forest, and between their giant boles dense undergrowth filled up 
the spaces. Luxuriant vines swung across from tree to tree, hanging in heavy fes- 


toons, which obstructed whatever view might have been attainable between the tree- 


566 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


trunks. With all my attention I could see no precipice, and was concluding to follow 
the road without any more vagaries, when Mr. L., who was a little in advance, waved 
his whip, as he stood beside his horse, and said, ‘Here is the bridge!’ I then 
perceived that we were near 
ly over it, the piled rocks 


on either hand forming a 


careless eye from perceiving 
the ravine which it spans. 
I turned to the side of the 


to look over; but I found 
it would not do. I went on 
to the inn, deposited my 
horse, and returned on foot 
to the bridge. 

“With all my efforts, I 
could not look down stead- 
ily into what seemed the bot- 
tomless abyss of foliage and 
RS : a? shadow. From every point 
: hf fa fe Rh. of the .bridge I tried, and all 
| i : in vain. I was heated and 
extremely hungry, and much 


vexed at my own weakness. 


The only way was to go 


down and look up; though 

Wild Cat Glen. Pennsylvania Railroad. where the bottom could be, 
was past my imagining, the view from the top seeming to be of foliage below foliage 
for ever. 

“The way to the glen is through a field opposite the inn, and down a steey - 
rough, rocky path, which leads under the bridge, and a few yards beyond it. I 
think the finest view of all is from this path, just before reaching the bridge. The 
irregular arch of rock, spanning a chasm of one hundred and sixty feet in height, 
and from sixty to ninety in width, is exquisitely tinted with every shade of gray 
and brown; while trees encroach from the sides, and overhang from the top, between 
which and the arch there is an additional depth of fifty-six feet. It was now early 
in July; the trees were in their brightest and thickest foliage; and the tall beeches 


under the arch contrasted their verdure with the gray rock, and received the gild- 


barrier, which prevents a _ 


road, and rose in my stirrup | 


va 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. 567 


ing of the sunshine, as it slanted into the ravine, glittering in the drip from the arch, 


and in the splashing and tumbling waters of Cedar Creek, which ran by our feet. 


Swallows were flying about under the arch. 


of such a home? 


What others of their tribe can boast 


® We crossed and recrossed the creek on stepping-stones, searching out every spot 


(EES E- 
GZ, 


The Delaware Water-Gap. Belvidere Division, Pennsylvania Railroad. 


to which any tradition belonged. Under the arch, thirty feet from the water, the 
lower part of the letters ‘G. W, may be seen carved in the rock. When Washing- 


tor was a young man, he climbed up hither, to leave this record of his visit, There 


568 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


are other inscriptions of the same_ kind, and above them a board, on which are 
painted the names of two persons, who have thought it worth while thus to immor- 
talize their feat of 
climbing highest.” 
On page 569 is 


represented one of 


those beautiful scenes 


which every year at- 


tracts its crowd of 
visitors from the cold 
and sombre north to 
a land in which veg- 
etation displays won- 
ders unknown else- 
where in the United 


States, and  water- 


birds and huge rep- 
: ‘ 


tiles seem to reign 


undisturbed. 


Of the river scen= 


ery which is repre- 


sented in our sketch, 
Conemaugh Viaduct. Pennsylvania Railroad. a recent traveller 


writes thus: “The St. John’s is separated from the ocean its entire length by a 
comparatively narrow strip of land of not over forty miles in average width. Its 
banks are mostly low, are very apt to be swampy, and are densely covered with 
the primeval forest, —live-oaks, water-oaks, bay, gum, and magnolia, hung with the 


long, waving drapery of solemn moss, while the beautiful palm with its crested crown 


sentinels the shores. 

“ Beneath and interwoven among these are the wild jessamine and creeping vines, 
lacing the undergrowth with an unbroken verdure, and rising from the water to the 
tree-tops. Then a dell appears, festooned with climbing and o’erarching growths, grace- 
fully curtaining its entrance, and tempting its beholder within the half-hidden sylvan 
retreat ; farther on, and a broad expanse or savanna is seen, bounded by the distant 
forest, with here and there a solitary palmetto standing alone like a plume. Flowing 
for some distance between banks of living green, the river suddenly widens, and we 
come to the placid waters of the lovely Lake George, across which we sail to the 
continuing channel beyond. By some strange instinct and guidance as it were, we 


find, hidden behind the tall grass and floating islands of this really fairy-land, the 


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SCENE ON THE ST. AUGUSTINE RIVER, FLORIDA. 


570 VOVAGES AND TRAVELS. 


sought-for channel, though a half-score of equally promising openings nad nearly 
tempted us astray. 

“Again and again this bewitching transfer is made from lagoon to river, and 
from river to lagoon and lake again. The shores here and there approach within a 
hundred feet and the stream is constantly turning the sharpest of angles, running 
back beside itself, fascinated with its own beauty as it were, then whisking suddenly 
about as if on a wager to outdo itself. On either hand glimpses are had of bays 


and mirrored waters, whose surface and shores seem likely never to have waked 


=== — 


At Mill Creek Pennsylvania Railroad. 


to other echoes than those of the wild birds that inhabit them. Again the river 
seems lost in a bewildering perspective of silver streamlets, separated only by some 
narrow knife-blade of meadow-land and flowers; but up them they are all verdure- 
banked, and moss-hung and vine-curtained and flower-bedecked, — the very picture of 
tropical profusion and summer loveliness. The swelling waves from the passing 
steamer lift and move away islands that just now were, but which a moment after 


are seen drifting with the current and breeze in fragmentary sections, each a living, 
floating, tropical bouquet.” 


‘VAVAUN Va4HRIS AHL NI DNIHSVM-CIOD 


SEE => =a 


ETA yt) 
TSCA tah 


it 
“ill 
i 


IN 


&72 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


Florida, however, with its peculiar climate and soil, seems scarcely a representative 
portion of the United States. Most truly American in every sense are the great 


mountains which make the conti- 


nent’s rocky spine, and over which 


the emigrant’s wagon has found its 


way, while the miner’s pick and 


his rude implements for gold-wash- 
ing in their wild torrents, have 
been the pioneers of a civilization 
well worthy to plant its starry flag 
above the region of perpetual snow. 

Now, the iron highway has in 
a great measure superseded the 
wagon trains; and the various ap- 
pliances of machinery have taken 


ee 


the place of the pick and the “ cra- 
dle,” in searching for the precious 
metals. Yet the earlier time had 
an intense characteristic vitality, 


somewhat lacking now, since thing's 


have been made easier. 

A traveller who crossed the 
continent in 1866, tells rapturously 
of the air and scenery upon the 
plains. “But,” he adds, “I must 
not omit one great feature in the 


constant landscape, —the long 


trains of wagons and carts, with 


In Jack’s Narrows. Pennsylvania Railroad. 


their teams of mules and oxen, 
passing to and fro on the road, going in empty, coming out laden with corn for 
man and beast, with machinery for the mining regions, with clothing, food, and lux- 


uries for the accumulating populations of Colorado, Utah, and Montana, — for all 


these territories and the intermediate populations draw their supplies from this quar- ° 


ter, and not from the California shore. The wagons are covered with white cloth, 
each is drawn usually by four to- six pairs of mules or oxen, and the trains of them 
stretch frequently from one-quarter to one-third of a mile each. As they move along 
in the distance they remind one of the caravans described in the Bible and other 
Hastern books. Turned out of the road on the green prairie for afternoon rest or 


: b) ° id nd e 
a night’s repose, the wagons drawn round in a circle as a sort of barricade against 


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PLANTING THE FLAG ON THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 


574 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


Indians or protection against storm, and the animals turned loose to feed, and wander- 
ing over the crowded prairie for a mile, ‘cattle upon a thousand hills,’ — at night their 
camp-fires burning,—%in any position or under any aspect, they present a picture most 
unique and impressive indeed.” 

“Mountains are always beautiful,” wrote the same traveller from Nevada, “and here 


Mining in Colorado. 


they are ever in sight, wearing every variety of shape, and even in their hard and 
bare surfaces presenting many a fascination of form, running up into sharp peaks, 
rounding out into innumerable soft curves, slipping away into faint foot-hills, and 
mingling with the plain to which they are all destined,— and now and then offer- 
ing the silvery streak of snow, the sign of water for man and grass for hungry ox.” 

Colorado, almost square in form, and “mounted upon the Sierra Madre,” says 
Hollister, “precisely as one mounts on a horse,” embraces territory large enough to 
make thirteen states of the size of Massachusetts. Through its centre, from north 
to south, runs the snowy range with its accompanying system of Parks, and_ its 
great wings, the Foot-hills, which run off on the eastern side between the water- 
courses, sloping down to timber in the course of eight or ten miles, then sinking 
into the valley, the agricultural section from the base of the mountains eastward. In 
the gulches of this great range are the famous mines which, with varying fortunes, 
have, since 1859, been the scene of the most enthusiastic industry, on the part of 


SCENES IN MANY LANDS. Pr 4010 


Crossing the Rocky Mountains. 


Americans from every state in the Union. Of the Sierra itself, Bayard Taylor writes: 
“Nowhere distorted or grotesque in outline, never monotonous, always lovely in color 
and atmospheric effect, I may recall some mountain chains which equal, but none 
which surpass them. From Denver there appear to be three totally distinct ranges. 
The first rises from two to three thousand feet above the level of the plains; it is 
cloven asunder by the cafions of the streams, streaked with dark lines of pine which 


feather its summits, and sunny with steep slopes of pasture. Some distance behind 


576 VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


it appears a second range of nearly double the height, more irregular in its masses, 


and of a dark, velvety, violet hue. Beyond, leaning against the sky, are the snowy 


peaks, nearly all of which are from thirteen thousand to fifteen thousand feet above 


the sea. These three chains, with their varying but never discordant undulations, 


are as inspiring to the imagination as they are enchanting to the eye. ‘They hint 


of concealed grandeurs in all the glens and parks among them, and yet you hold 
back with a doubt whether they can be more beautiful near at hand than when 
beheld at this distance.” 

What gallantry and courage, what infinite store of patience and endurance, the 
emigrants must have possessed who colonized the Rocky Mountain region and the 


Pacific slope! A certain wild strain of enthusiasm and poetry must have been in 


natures that willingly sought so adventurous a life,—a poetry which showed itself 
perhaps at its culminating point when the brave explorer climbed, through dangers 
of untold magnitude, to the top of some lofty snow-crowned peak, for the mere 
sake of planting there an American flag, which the next storm was sure to tear away 
and sweep to utter destruction. | 

Yet an act like this is a feather in the cap,—adding a certain airy finish and 
grace to what was otherwise merely useful. It is, if we may so say, the pictur- 
esque element in character, and as such, is not ill-suited to have its recognition in these 


the last pages of our Picturesque World. % 


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